LOS ANGELES
AND
VICINITY
ERN A RD/I N Q.\:-: -COUNT V ____.- _^;
LOS ANGELES
A Guide to the City and Its Environs
LOS ANGELES
A GUIDE TO THE CITY AND
ITS ENVIRONS
Compiled by Workers of the Writers Program
of the Work Projects Administration
in Southern California
AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES
ILLUSTRATED
Sponsored by
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
HASTINGS HOUSE Publishers NEW YORK
M CM X LI
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1941
FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY
JOHN M. CARMODY, Administrator
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
HOWARD O. HUNTER, Acting Commissioner
FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner
CLAYTON E. TRIGGS, Acting Southern California Administrator
COPYRIGHT 1941 BY THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or parts thereof in any form.
Prefc
ace
A guide book to Los Angeles could not logically be limited to the
corporate city, far-flung as it is. So limited it would cover San Fer
nando Mission and omit Mission San Gabriel, godmother of Los
Angeles Pueblo; it would also eliminate the beaches and the mountain
and desert resorts associated with the city s recreational life. For this
reason, and because greater Los Angeles is pretty much a unit eco
nomically as well as geographically the area bounded by Malibu, Palm
Springs, the beaches, and the mountain resorts has been described in
this book.
From the gathering of the first field notes to the last mark of a
blue pencil, the guide was constructed by a staff working under a co
operative arrangement. With few exceptions, no one person is respon
sible for the accuracy or mode of expression of any single page. One
staff of workers has painstakingly poured over research material in
libraries, interviewed many persons of various interests and occupations,
covered hundreds of miles of highway and set down what was learned
by personal observation. Another staff has checked and rechecked the
work of the research staff. A third has written and rewritten the
field material, shaping it into the final pattern.
The aim has been to present Los Angeles truthfully and objec
tively, neither glorifying it nor vilifying it. For many decades the
city has suffered from journalistic superficiality; it has been lashed as
a city of sin and cranks; it has also been strangled beneath a damp
blanket of unrestrained eulogy. The book shows Los Angeles as a com
posite, a significant city, the fifth largest in the United States.
For their generous aid and co-operation in the making of this book
the editors wish to express their appreciation to the staffs of the Los
Angeles Public Library, the Los Angeles County Library, the Los
Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, the Southwest Museum,
VI PREFACE
the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the California Institute of
Technology, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
Among the many individuals who volunteered their assistance in
special fields the editors wish particularly to acknowledge their grati
tude to Margaret Carhart, John Caughey, John P. Commons, Alex
ander S. Cowie, R. B. Cowles, L. H. Daingerfield, Rabbi Maxwell H.
Dubin, Geraldine Espe, E. C. Farnham, Paul Hunter, Arthur M.
Johnson, H. Roy Kelley, Mary Louise Lacy, Robert H. Lane, Carey
McWilliams, John Peere Miles, Arthur Millier, Richard J. Neutra,
Ernest H. Quayle, Hal B. Rorke, Bruno David Ussher, Robert H.
Webb, and Lloyd Wright.
JOHN D. KEYES, State Supervisor
Southern California Writers Project
Contents
Page
PREFACE V
GENERAL INFORMATION xvii
HOTEL AND OTHER ACCOMMODATIONS xxv
RESTAURANTS xxvii
NIGHT CLUBS xxxi
RECREATIONAL FACILITIES xxxv
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS . xli
Part I. Los Angeles: A General Survey
THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE 3
NATURAL SETTING 10
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 24
EDUCATION 61
RELIGION 67
THE MOVIES 73
RADIO 98
THE ARTS 103
THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE 134
Part II. Los Angeles Points of Interest
DOWNTOWN Los ANGELES 145
THE INDUSTRIAL SECTION 161
THE NORTH AND EAST SECTIONS 169
vii
Vlll CONTENTS
THE NORTHWEST SECTION
THE WlLSHIRE AND WEST SECTIONS
THE SOUTHWEST SECTION
Page
176
181
187
Part III. Neighboring Cities
BEVERLY HILLS 197
GLENDALE 206
THE HARBOR: SAN PEDRO AND WILMINGTON . . . . . 214
HOLLYWOOD 227
LONG BEACH AND SIGNAL HILL 238
PASADENA . . . . . . . . . . ... . . 254
SANTA MONICA . 265
Part IV . The Country Around Los Angeles
TOUR 1 Los Angeles San Marino Arcadia Monrovia Azusa
Claremont Upland San Bernardino Arrowhead Hot
Springs Lake Arrowhead Big Bear Lake Pine Knot
Village [N. Main St., Macy St., Mission Rd., Hunting-
ton Dr., N., US 66, State 18] . . 277
TOUR 1A South Pasadena Pasadena Flintridge La Canada
Mount Wilson Observatory [Fair Oaks Ave., At
lanta St., Arroyo Dr., La Canada Verdugo Rd., State
118, Foothill Blvd., Haskell St., Angeles Crest Highway,
State 2, Mount Wilson Rd.] 2Q5
TOUR IB Azusa Angeles National Forest Pine Flats Crystal Lake
[State 39, Crystal Lake Rd.J . . . . . . . 3OI
TOUR 2 Los Angeles Monterey Park Pomona Ontario Colton
Redlands Beaumont Banning Palm Springs
Cathedral City Indio [N. Main St., Aliso St., Ramona
Blvd., US 99, State in] . . . . . . . . 305
ToUR 3 Los Angeles Alhambra El Monte Puente Pomona
Ontario Riverside Per r is Elsinore Corona Ana
heim Norwalk Downey Southgate Los Angeles
[Valley Blvd., US 60, US 395, State 71, State 18, State
10, Alameda St.] 321
TOUR 4 Los Angeles Belvedere Montebello Whittier Ful-
lerton Anaheim Santa Ana Tustin Irvine Capis-
trano Doheny Park [US 101] . . . . . 339
CONTENTS IX
Page
TOUR 5 Los Angeles Culver City Venice Redondo Wilmington
Long Beach Seal Beach Huntington Beach New
port Balboa Laguna Beach Doheny Park [Wash
ington Blvd., Venice Speedway, Vista del Mar, US
zoiA] 351
TOUR 5A Wilmington Santa Catalina Island [By Boat] . 3^7
TOUR 6 Los Angeles Hollywood Sherman Oaks Tarzana
Girard Topanga Canyon Topanga Beach Castel-
lammare Santa Monica [US 101, Sunset Blvd., Ca-
huenga Ave., Ventura Blvd., Topanga Canyon Rd.,
US zoiA] 379
TOUR 7 Los Angeles Burbank San Fernando Palmdale Big
Pines San Bernardino [US 6, State 138, Big Pines
Rd., US 66] 387
Part V . Appendices
CHRONOLOGY 405
SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 413
INDEX 421
^^
Illustrations
METROPOLITAN ASPECTS
Detail of Mural in Federal Build
ing and Post Office
Mural by Edward Biberman
Section of Fine Arts, Treas
ury Department
Seventh Street
Fred William Carter
Airview of Downtown Los An
geles, looking South
Los Angeles County Develop
ment Committee
Main Street
Fred William Carter
City Hall
Fred William Carter
ARCHITECTURE
Los Angeles County General Hos
pital
Viktor von Pribosic
Los Angeles Public Library
Bertram Goodhue, Architect
Burton O. Burt
Mudd Memorial Hall of Philoso
phy, University of Southern
California
University of Southern Cali
fornia
McAlmon Residence, Los Angeles
R. M. Schindler, Architect
Julius Shulman
"Blue and Silver House," the resi
dence of Jobyna Howland
Beverly Hills
Lloyd Wright, Architect
Julius Shulman
A Palm Springs Residence
Honnold and Russell, Architects
Thomas & Kitchel
Page
Between IO and II
Los Angeles Stock Exchange
"Dick" Whittington
Lotus Pool in Echo Park
Frank L. Rollins
Duckpond, Westlake Park
Fred William Carter
Residential District
Burton O. Burt
Lafayette Park and the First Con
gregational Church
Fred William Carter
First Sketch of Los Angeles
(1852), from Fort Moore Hill
Security First National Bank
Sixth and Spring Streets (1904)
Security First National Bank
Between 72 and 73
V. D. L. Research House, Los
Angeles
Home of Richard J. Neutra,
Architect
Luckhaus Studio
Federal Building and Post Office,
Los Angeles
G. Stanley Underwood, Archi
tect
F. E. Dunham: U. S. Forest
Service
Columbia Broadcasting System
Studios, Hollywood
William Lescaze, Architect
Columbia Broadcasting Sys
tem
Edison Building, Los Angeles
Allison and Allison, Architects
Edison Company
Xll ILLUSTRATIONS
ARCHITECTURE continued
A Sierra Madre Residence of Bat
ten Construction
Graham Latta, Architect
George D. Haight
Page
Between 72 and 73
An Altadena Residence (Mon
terey Style) H. Roy Kelley,
Architect
George D. Haight
MOVIES IN THE MAKING
The Main Studio at Burbank of
Warner Brothers First Na
tional Pictures
Warner Brothers
The Samuel Gfoldwyn Lot, Small
est of the Major Studios
Samuel Goldwyn
Whenever there s a question
there s a conference
Robert Coburn
Shooting a scene on a sound stage
set
Samuel Goldwyn
Completed set
Samuel Goldwyn
Shooting a scene with a Techni
color camera
Samuel Goldwyn
Lunch Time on the Set
Samuel Goldwyn
Men s Wardrobe Department
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Expert seamstresses are employed
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Between 134 and 135
A Corner of the Property Room
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Makeup
Samuel Goldwyn
Fog made to order
Samuel Goldwyn
A Hand-made Tree
Samuel Goldwyn
Waves are produced by motor-
driven eccentric cylinders
Samuel Goldwyn
Vegetables are shellacked to pre
vent wilting under heat of lights
Samuel Goldwyn
A modern moviola is used in the
process of editing, or "cutting,"
the film
Samuel Goldwyn
Music is synchronized on records
which are played back later and
recorded on film.
Robert Coburn
ART AND EDUCATION
A Station of the Cross, Mission
San Gabriel Arcangel
Index of American Design
Prometheus, Mural by Jose
Orozco in Fray Hall, Pomona
College, Claremont
Boyd Cooper
Loggia, Mission San Juan Capi-
strano
Index of American Design
Belfry, Mission San Gabriel
Arcangel
Burton O. Burt
Mission San Fernando
Fred William Carter
Between 164 and 165
Detail from Painting, Rancho La
Brea Pitch Pools
Field Museum of Natural
History, Chicago
Imperial Elephant, Los Angeles
Museum of History, Science,
and Art
Theodore Baron
In the Planetarium, Griffith Ob
servatory, Los Angeles
Fred William Carter
Young Public School Artist
Board of Education, Los An
geles
ILLUSTRATIONS Xlll
Page
ART AND EDUCATION continued Between 164 and 165
Experimental Public School, Los Hollywood Bowl
Angeles
Richard J. Neutra, Architect
Luckhaus Studio
Thomas Jefferson High School,
Los Angeles
Stiles O. Clement, Architect
Board of Education, Los An
geles
Hollywood Chamber of Com
merce
Mt. Wilson Observatory
Fairchild Aerial Survey
INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
Unloading tuna fish, Fish Harbor,
Terminal Island
Burton O. Burt
Loading ship, Terminal Island
Burton O. Burt
Grain Elevator
Bret W eston
Natural Gas Tanks
Bret W eston
Oil Fields, Montebello
Fred William Carter
Airview of Industrial Section, Los
Angeles
Spense Air Photos
Wine Storage Vats
Los Angeles County Chamber
of Commerce
Between 226 and 227
Wine Experts Taste and Classify
California Vintages
In a Walnut Packing Plant
Art Streib
Lemon Sizing Machine
California Fruit Growers
Exchange
Body Assembly Line, Automobile
Factory
Studebaker-Pacific Corpora
tion
Assembly Room, Aircraft Factory
Douglas Aircraft Company,
Inc.
RECREATION
Tournament of Roses Parade,
Pasadena
Bathing Beauty Parade, Venice
Mardi Gras
Surf Board Riding, Hermosa
Beach
Los Angeles County Chamber
of Commerce
Bathing Scene at Long Beach
Inman Company
Sailing, Alamitos Bay
Los Angeles County Chamber
of Commerce
Marlin Swordfish (570 lbs.)> Ca-
talina
Santa Catalina Island
Between 256 and 257
Ice Hockey on Jackson Lake, Big
Pines Park
Los Angeles County Chamber
of Commerce
Tobogganing in Big Pines Park
Los Angeles County Chamber
of Commerce
Skiing at Big Pines Park
Los Angeles County Chamber
of Commerce
Dog Sled, Arrowhead Lake
Lake Arrowhead Company
Fishing off the Pier, Santa Monica
Fred William Carter
Card Players in the Park
Burton O. Burt
XIV ILLUSTRATIONS
RECREATION continued
Bowling on the Green, Exposition
Park, Los Angeles
Burton O. Burt
Tennis Courts, La Cienega Play
ground, Beverly Hills
City of Beverly Hills
STREET SCENES
In the Old Plaza
Burton O. Burt
Debate in Pershing Square
Burton O. Burt
Unpacking "huacales" (Mexican
packing cases), Olvera Street
Viroque Baker
"La Vieja" (The Old Lady),
Olvera Street
Viroque Baker
Mexican Blacksmith, Olvera
Street
Burton O. Burt
Mexican Potters "Priesto,"
Olvera Street
Burton O. Burt
Chinese Market
Burton O. Burt
Mexican Market
Burton O. Burt
ALONG THE HIGHWAY
North Shore, Santa Monica Bay
Fred William Carter
Palm Canyon, Palm Springs
Fred William Carter
Joshua Tree
Burton O. Burt
San Fernando Valley from Mul-
holland Drive
Burton O. Burt
Mt. San Jacinto
Fred William Carter
Grapefruit Grove
California Fruit Growers
Exchange
Roping Cattle
Theodore Baron
Page
Between 256 and 257
Hollywood Park Race Track,
Inglewood
Carroll Photo Service
Airview, Rose Bowl, Pasadena
Kopec Photo Company
Between 318 and 319
Mexican News Stand, North
Main Street
Burton O. Burt
Japanese News Stand, East First
Street
Burton O. Burt
Angelus Temple
Burton O. Burt
Flop House and "Nickel Show,"
Main Street
Burton O. Burt
A Rushing Business
Burton O. Burt
The Record of the Stars, Grau-
man s Chinese Theater
Burton O. Burt
The Brown Derby (Wilshire
Boulevard)
Fred William Carter
Parasol Library in Pershing
Square
Fred William Carter
Between 380 and 381
Sheep
Horace Bristol
Casa Verdugo, Glendale
Burton O. Burt
Shinto Temple in Japanese Fish
ing Village, Terminal Island
Burton O. Burt
Lasky s Barn, Hollywood First
Home of Paramount Pictures
Theodore Baron
Old Lugo House on the Plaza,
Los Angeles
Viroque Baker
Portuguese mending nets, Ter
minal Island
Viroque Baker
Map.
Page
Los ANGELES AND VICINITY front end paper
Los ANGELES (with downtown insert) 146, 147
BEVERLY HILLS AND VICINITY 202, 203
GLENDALE 211
Los ANGELES HARBOR 221
HOLLYWOOD 234, 235
LONG BEACH 246, 247
PASADENA 259
SANTA MONICA 268, 269
TOUR KEY MAP rear end paper
XV
x&xz&^zx^^^
General Information
Railroad Stations: Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, 800 N.
Alameda St. (between Aliso and Macy Sts.), for Union Pacific R.R.,
Southern Pacific Lines, and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Main
Street Station, 610 S. Main St., for Pacific Electric Railway interurban
and local street car lines; Subway Terminal, 423 S. Hill St., for Pacific
Electric Railway interurban and local street car lines, and motor coach
lines.
Bus Stations: Motor Transit District Lines of Pacific Electric Ry.,
202 E. 5th St.; Pacific Electric Ry., 423 S. Hill St. (interurban bus
service to Redondo Beach, Glendale, etc.) ; Pasadena-Ocean Park Stage
Line, Inc. (Hollywood to Pasadena only), 1625 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
(all interurban). Santa Fe-Burlington Bus Depot, 603 S. Main St.,
for Santa Fe Trailways and Burlington Trailways (National Trail-
ways System), and Airline Bus Co.; Union Pacific Stage Depot, 451
S. Main St., for Union Pacific-Chicago & Northwestern Stages and
Interstate Transit Lines; Union Stage Depot, 202 E. 5th St., for Origi
nal Stage Lines, Mt. Wilson Stages, and Inland Stages; Greyhound
Terminal, 560 S. Los Angeles St., for Pacific Greyhound Lines and
Inland Stages; Independent Bus Depot, 218 E. yth St., for Dollar
Lines and Independent Stages; All-American Bus Depot, 629 S. Main
St., for All-American Bus Lines and Overland Stages; 809 E. 5th St.,
for Los Angeles-Trona Stages.
Bus Service: (Local and interurban) Pacific Electric busses, Subway
Terminal Bldg., 423 S. Hill St.; Motor Transit Lines (interurban),
202 E. 5th St.; Los Angeles Motor Coach Co. (local) ; Los Angeles
Railway (local and interurban) ; Asbury Rapid Transit System (local
and interurban), 202 E. 5th St.
Bus Tours: Tanner-Gray Line (sightseeing), 544 S. Hill St., and
Rosslyn Hotel, in W. 5th St.; California Parlor Car Tours, Inc. (to
San Francisco and Yosemite), Pacific Electric Bldg., 610 S. Main St.,
and Biltmore Hotel, 515 S. Olive St.; Mac s Auto Tours, 518 S.
Hill St.
xvii
XV111 GENERAL INFORMATION
Streetcars: Los Angeles Railway (yellow cars, local) ; Pacific Electric
Railway (red cars, local and interurban), terminals at Pacific Electric
Bldg., 610 S. Main St., and Subway Terminal Bldg., 423 S. Hill St.;
interurban trains, Pacific Electric Railway (red cars), address above.
Airports: Grand Central Air Terminal, 1224 Airway, Glendale, for
Pan American Airways, time from Los Angeles about 45 minutes;
Union Air Terminal, 2627 Hollywood Way, Burbank, for American
Airlines, United Air Lines, TWA, Western Air Express, time from
Los Angeles approximately 55 minutes; from Hollywood, 30 minutes.
Taxis: Yellow Cab Co. of Los Angeles, 1408 W. 3rd St., five can
ride for price of one; above company owns California Cab Co., Red
Top Cab Co., Sunshine Cab Co. (confined to Hollywood), and Black
and White Cab Co. (confined to Negro district).
Piers: Ships berth in Los Angeles Harbor, San Pedro, Wilmington,
West Basin, and Terminal Island (see The Harbor}. Coastwise pas
sage on occasional freighters only. For travel to east coast, outlying
possessions, and foreign countries consult classified telephone directory
or travel bureaus.
Transportation to Santa Catalina Island (see Tour 5A} : Leave Cata-
lina Terminal (berths 184-185) foot of Avalon Blvd., Wilmington,
10 a.m. daily; automobile storage at pier. Boat train leaves Pacific
Electric Station, Los Angeles, daily 9 a.m. Catalina Airport, Wilming
ton, near Catalina Terminal, to Catalina (Avalon) only, by Pacific
Electric Railway to Wilmington, free fare to airport, 46 minutes from
Los Angeles via Pacific Electric Railway, 5 minutes to airport.
Climate: Widely diversified in Los Angeles area where arid desert
spaces and snow-blanketed mountains are easily accessible. Average
seasonal rainfall in the city for 62 years, 15.22 in.; average yearly
wind velocity, 6.1 m.p.h.; average annual temperature, 62.4. Light
clothing can be worn most of the year, but wraps are desirable in the
rainy season and for general evening wear.
Information Bureaus: All-Year Club, official tourists information
bureau, 505 W. 6th St.; Chamber of Commerce, 1151 S. Broadway;
Automobile Club of Southern California, 2601 S. Figueroa St. ; Pacific
Electric Ry. Information Bureau, 610 S. Main St.; Thomas Cook &
Sons, 520 W. 6th St. ; Los Angeles Times Information Bureau, 202
W. 1st St.; Southern Californians, Inc., 411 W. 5th St.; Better Busi
ness Bureau of Los Angeles, 742 S. Hill St.; Los Angeles Examiner
Information Bureau, mi S. Broadway; Peck-Judah Co., 409 W.
5th St.; Randall Motor Club, Inc., 5901 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.
GENERAL INFORMATION XIX
Auto Clubs: Automobile Club of Southern California (47 branches),
main office 2601 S. Figueroa St.; National Automobile Club (Southern
California Division Office), 618 W. Olympic Blvd.; Randall Motor
Club, Inc., 5901 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.
Streets and Numbers: Owing to annexation of various areas by the
city of Los Angeles, there are (1940) approximately 800 duplications
in street names and designations. Strangers are advised to use street
maps, obtainable free at information bureaus. The numbered streets
run approximately E. and W. with Main St. as a base line. Streets
running approximately N. and S. have ist St. as a base. Numbers are
assigned 100 to the block beginning at 100 E. and W. from Main St.
and N. and S. from ist St. Even numbers appear on the E. and S.
sides of streets. This basic system is carried through most sections with
as much continuity as varying terrain permits.
Traffic Regulations: Speed limit 25 m.p.h. in business districts, and
in residential districts. Right turn against red signal permitted from
right-hand lane after full stop, except in Central Traffic District (Cen
tral Traffic District is roughly bounded by Pico Blvd., Sunset Blvd.,
Figueroa St., and Los Angeles St.), but pedestrians and vehicles pro
ceeding with signal have right of way. Parking: No standing or
stopping at red curbs; loading zones (20 minutes, mdse. ; 3 minutes,
passenger) at yellow curbs; passenger loading zones (3 min.) at white
curbs; parking (15 min.) at green curbs; otherwise 45 minutes in
Central Traffic District 7 a.m. -4 130 p.m.; no parking 4:30-6 p.m.
Unlimited parking 6 p.m.-7 a.m. (City traffic laws available at Police
Stations.)
Liquor Regulations: No alcoholic beverages sold between 2 a.m. and
6 a.m. The law forbids automobile driving while under the influence
of alcohol.
Public Buildings: Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1151 S. Broad
way; City Hall, 200 N. Spring St.; Hall of Justice, 211 W. Temple
St.; Federal Bldg. (U.S. Post Office and Court House), 312 N. Spring
St.; Hall of Records, 220 N. Broadway; Los Angeles Stock Exchange
Bldg., 639 S. Spring St.; California State Bldg., 217 W. ist St.;
Y.M.C.A., 715 S. Hope St.; Y.W.C.A., 941 S. Figueroa St.; Los
Angeles Public Library, 530 S. Hope St.; Department of Water &
Power, 207 S. Broadway; Southern California Gas Co., 810 S. Flower
St.; Department of Motor Vehicles, 3500 S. Hope St.
Art Galleries: Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art,
Exposition Blvd., Exposition Park; California Art Club, 1645 N. Ver-
XX GENERAL INFORMATION
mont Ave. ; Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, 1151
Oxford Rd., San Marino; Biltmore Salon, Biltmore Hotel, 515 S.
Olive St.; Stendahl Art Galleries, 3006 Wilshire Blvd.; Price Tone,
9045 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.
Concert Halls: Philharmonic Auditorium, 427 W. 5th St.; Embassy
Auditorium, 843 S. Grand Ave.; Shrine Civic Auditorium, 665 W.
Jefferson Blvd.
Museums: Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art, Ex
position Park, open 10-4:30 Tuesday to Friday; Sun. 1-9; Mon. 1-4:30;
holidays 2-5; closed Thanksgiving and Christmas; free. Southwest
Museum, Marmion Way and Museum Dr., open 1-5 daily except
Mon.; closed July 4, Christmas, and during August; free. Marine
Museum, Cabrillo Beach, 9-5 daily; closed Christmas; free.
Newspapers: Los Angeles Times, 2O2 W. 1st St., morn, and Sun.;
Los Angeles Examiner, 1 1 1 1 S. Broadway, morn, and Sun. ; Los An
geles Herald-Express, 1243 Trenton St., eve., daily except Sun.; The
News, 1257 S. Los Angeles St., morn, and eve., daily except Sun.;
Citizen-News, 1545 N. Wilcox St., Hollywood, eve. only, daily except
Sunday.
Radio Stations: KFI (640 kc.), National Broadcasting Co., 141 S.
Vermont Ave.; KHJ (900 kc.), Mutual Broadcasting System, 1076
W. 7th St.; XEMO (860 kc.), Tijuana, Mex., Los Angeles address
643 S. Olive St.; Chamber of Commerce Bldg., 1151 S. Broadway;
KFVD (1000 kc.), 338 S. Western Ave.; KFSG (1120 kc.), Angelus
Temple, 1100 Glendale Blvd.; KRKD (1120 kc.), 541 S. Spring St.;
KGFJ (1200 kc.), 1417 S. Figueroa St.; KFOX (1250 kc.), 542 S.
Broadway; KFAC (1300 kc.), 645 S. Mariposa Ave.; KGER (1360
kc.), 643 S. Olive St.; KECA (780 kc.), 141 S. Vermont Ave.;
KMTR (570 kc.), 1000 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood; KFWB (950
kc.), 5833 Fernwood Ave., Hollywood; KNX (1050 kc.), 6121 Sunset
Blvd.; KMPC (710 kc.), 9631 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills.
Shopping Districts: The downtown shopping area is bounded roughly
by 1st (N) and 9th Sts. (S), and by Main (E) and Figueroa Sts.
(W). Most of the department stores and specialty shops are along
Broadway and Hill Sts. S. of 4th, and on W. 6th, 7th, and 8th Sts.
to Figueroa ; the larger ones on 7th. For the most part the stores N. of
4th on Hill, Broadway, and Spring Sts. deal in low-priced merchandise.
GENERAL INFORMATION XXI
Just off the Plaza, near Main St., is gay Olvera St., one block long,
a fragment of old Mexico. On Main St. itself, extending several blocks
S. of the Plaza, Mexican establishments predominate. Then the street
becomes a conglomeration of low-priced shops, cheap restaurants, cheap
movie and burlesque houses, shooting galleries, pawnshops, and honky-
tonks.
Downtown department stores and some shops maintain branches in
many of the outlying communities and cities, including Hollywood,
Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Westwood. Many groups of shops
in both the moderate and higher price brackets may be found along
Wilshire Blvd. from downtown Los Angeles through Beverly Hills and
Santa Monica.
In and beyond Hollywood to Beverly Hills, Sunset Blvd. is dotted
with specialty shops, restaurants and night clubs. This section is locally
called The Sunset Strip.
Many .of the communities that have been annexed to Los Angeles
have their own shopping areas.
The financial district is centered in Spring St. between 4th and
;th Sts.
Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: More than a dozen legitimate
theaters, many little theaters, 181 motion-picture houses and three
amphitheaters (September 1940) are in the city. Most of the leading
motion-picture houses in the downtown section are on Broadway and
Hill Sts.; in Hollywood, on Hollywood Blvd. Among the more im
portant theaters are:
Downtown Theaters
Biltmore, 530 W. 5th St., major road shows; Belasco, 1050 S. Hill St.
(not leased) ; Mayan, 1040 S. Hill St., stock; Musart, 1320 S. Figueroa
St., stock; Theater Mart, 605 N. Juanita Ave., The Drunkard now in
eighth year (Dec. 1940).
Hollywood Theaters
El Capitan, 6838 Hollywood Blvd., road shows; Hollywood Playhouse,
1735 N. Vine St. (not leased).
Downtown Picture Houses
Hillstrect RKO, 801 S. Hill St.; Loew s State, 705 S. Broadway;
Million Dollar, 307 S. Broadway, pictures and stage shows; Newsreel,
744 S. Broadway, first-run newsreels and shorts; Orpheum, 842 S.
Broadway, pictures and road vaudeville; Paramount, 323 W. 6th St.,
pictures and stage show; Warner Bros. Downtown, 7th and Hill Sts.
XX11 GENERAL INFORMATION
Wilshire District Picture Houses
Four Star, 5112 Wilshire Blvd.
Hollywood Picture Houses
Grauman s Chinese, 6925 Hollywood Blvd.; Pantages Hollywood, 6233
Hollywood Blvd.; Tele- View, 6262 Hollywood Blvd., first-run news-
reels and shorts; Warner Bros. Hollywood, 6433 Hollywood Blvd.
Amphitheaters
Greek Theater, N. Vermont Ave., Canyon Dr. in Griffith Park; Holly
wood Bowl, 1711 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, symphony programs
and operas; Pilgrimage Play Theater, 2580 N. Highland Ave., Holly
wood; Pilgrimage Play opened its iyth season, July 1940.
National Forest Regulations: Public use of forests is encouraged; free.
Visitors to the forests are required to observe these rules :
1. A campfire permit must be obtained before any fire, including fire
in stoves burning wood, kerosene, or gasoline, can be started on national
forest land. All forest officers issue permits without charge.
2. Each camping party must bring into the forests a shovel and an
ax for each vehicle or pack train. Shovel must have blade at least
8-in. wide and an over-all length of 36-in. ; ax, not less than 26-in.
long over all with head weighing 2-lbs. or more. Both tools must be
in serviceable condition.
3. During the dangerous fire season, smoking is prohibited except in
improved camps, places of habitation, and specially posted areas; smokers
must extinguish lighted matches, cigars, cigarettes, and pipe heels.
Watch carefully for "No Smoking" and "Smoke Here" signs.
4. In periods of high fire hazard, camping and camp or picnic fires
are restricted to posted campgrounds, and part or all of the forests
may be closed to public use and travel. Watch for "Closed Area"
signs.
5. Build small fires. Clear an area not less than lo-ft. in diameter
before starting a fire.
6. Never leave a fire without totally extinguishing it with water.
7. Keep camp clean. Where garbage pits and incinerators are not pro
vided, burn or bury all garbage and refuse.
8. Do not pollute the springs, streams, or lakes.
9. Observe the state fish and game laws.
Wild Flower Protection: Picking and destroying wild flowers, ferns,
shrubs, or trees, is prohibited by law and punishable by a fine not ex
ceeding $200, or not more than 6 months in jail, or both. Permits
GENERAL INFORMATION XX111
for picking wild flowers for scientific purposes can be obtained free
from the County Forest Service, 312 N. Spring St. Only one of each
species may be picked. When wild flowers are growing on private
property there is no restriction about picking them if owner s consent
is obtained.
Hotel and Other Accommodations
Although Los Angeles possesses more than 800 hotels, ample nor
mally to care for the heavy and continuous year-around stream of
visitors, to prevent possible inconvenience or disappointment it is sug
gested that visitors write or wire in advance for accommodations desired.
Los Angeles rates are moderate in comparison with other large
cities. The following list, alphabetically arranged, contains a few of
the better-known hotels in both the moderate and higher brackets.
DOWNTOWN
Alexandria, 210 W. 5th St.; Biltmore, 515 S. Olive St.; Clark, 426
S. Hill St.; Hayward, 206 W. 6th St.; Lankershim, 230 W. 7th St.;
Mayfair, 1256 W. 7th St.; Mayflower, 535 S. Grand Ave. ; Rosslyn,
in W. 5th St.
WILSHIRE DISTRICT
Ambassador, 3400 Wilshire Blvd.; Chapman Park, 615 S. Alexandria
Ave. ; Town House, 639 S. Commonwealth Ave.
BEVERLY HILLS
Beverly Hills, I2OI Sunset Blvd.; Beverly -Wilshire, 9514 Wilshire
Blvd.
HOLLYWOOD
Christie, 6724 Hollywood Blvd.; Hollywood, 68 1 1 Hollywood Blvd.;
Hollywood Plaza, 1637 N. Vine St.; Hollywood Knickerbocker, 1714
Ivar Ave.; Mark Twain, 1622 N. Wilcox Ave.; Roosevelt, 7000 Holly
wood Blvd.; Wilcox, 6504 Selma Ave.
APARTMENTS
More than 3,000 apartment houses, apartment hotels, and flats with a
wide range of rates.
XXV
XXVI HOTEL AND OTHER ACCOMMODATIONS
AUTO AND TRAILER CAMPS
Eighty-five trailer campsites within the city limits have been zoned
by the City Planning Commission. Trailer and auto camps are also
along all major highways leading into city.
Restaurants
Los Angeles is more noted for its drive-in sandwich stands than
for venerable restaurants. Yet there are numerous first-class cafes,
dining rooms, and restaurants scattered throughout the city and its
environs, a remarkably large share of them being outside the downtown
district. Among the better-known places (alphabetically arranged) are:
DOWNTOWN
Bernstein s Fish Grotto, 424 W. 6th St. Excellent sea food ; Coo-Coo
clams a specialty. See the aquarium windows.
Casa La Golondrina Mexican Cafe, 35 Olvera St. Mexican food,
entertainment, and dancing in Los Angeles oldest brick house.
Cook s Steak and Chop House, 633 S. Olive St. Popular with busi
ness people; leather lounges and pull-up tables.
Jee Gong Law, 739 N. Alameda St. Good a la carte menu; Suey
Gow a specialty; reasonable prices. One of the better places in Old
Chinatown.
Jerry s Joynt, 21 1 Ferguson Alley (near the Plaza). Prices moderate.
Food good. A jade lounge with carved woodwork and handsome fig
urines make it an interesting spot to see, even if you re not hungry
or thirsty.
Levy s Grill, 617 S. Spring St. One of the oldest restaurants in town.
Noted for sea food and steaks.
Little Joe s, 900 N. Broadway. Lunches a la carte. Dinners. Good
Italian food.
Mike Lyman s Grill, 751 S. Hill St. Especially popular with sports
men, show people, and Spring Street quarterbacks.
McDonnells, a dozen or more branches in various parts of the city.
Prices are slightly higher at McDonnell s drive-in stands.
Normandie French Restaurant, 108 W. Olympic Blvd. First-class
French food served in a quiet, conservative atmosphere.
xxvii
XXV111 RESTAURANTS
Old Hickory Brick Kitchen, branches in various parts of the city. A la
carte only; specialty: barbecued spareribs, chicken served with hot bis
cuits, honey, shoestring potatoes, a pail of water, and a washcloth.
Pig n Whistle, branches in various parts of the city. Candy and con
fectionery counters in connection with cafes. Food and cocktails served
in pleasant surroundings.
Rene & Jean French Table d Hote, 639 S. Olive St. Soup and salad
served family style.
Taix French Restaurant, 321 Commercial St. Sun. and Thurs. chicken
dinner. Excellent food served family style. The atmosphere is con
genial and informal.
Yee Hung Guey, 956 Castelar St. One of several good restaurants in
New Chinatown. Open kitchen is an interesting feature.
WILSHIRE DISTRICT
Brown Derby Cafe, 3377 Wilshire Blvd. A la carte and table d hote.
Signs admonish passers-by to "Eat in the Hat." Popular with those
who like to look for the movie stars. Excellent food served by waitresses
in derby-shaped skirts.
Eaton s Chicken House, 3550 Wilshire Blvd. (Branches in other parts
of city.) Superb chicken all you want.
El Cholo Spanish Cafe, 1121 S. Western Ave. Enchiladas, tamales,
and tacos in a Mexican atmosphere.
L mdy s Restaurant, 3656 Wilshire Blvd. Dinner a la carte only.
Popular with late diners-out. Steaks, chops, and roast beef are spe
cialties.
Lucca Restaurant, 501 S. Western Ave. Ample servings of everything
from antipasto to spumone in a florid setting with strolling singers.
Mona Lisa, 3343 Wilshire Blvd. French-Italian restaurant favored by
gourmets. Continental atmosphere. Vintage wines.
Perino s Restaurant, 3927 Wilshire Blvd. Table d hote and a la carte.
Specialties include scallopini of veal, chicken curry, crepes suzette, and
strawberry Italienne.
HOLLYWOOD
Brown Derby Cafe, 1628 N. Vine St. A la carte only. Frequented
by movie stars, especially Friday nights after the American Legion prize
fights. Excellent cuisine.
Carolina Pines, 7315 Melrose Ave. Good Southern cooking. Rea
sonable.
RESTAURANTS XXIX
Carpenter s Drive-In Sandwich Stand, 6290 Sunset Blvd. (Branches
in various parts of city.) A la carte only. Barbecued sandwiches and
fried chicken with honey and potatoes are featured.
Covey s Sardi s, 6315 Hollywood Blvd. Features are the amply laden
hors d oeuvres cart, the Kansas City roast beef and steaks, and the
boneless squab chicken with wild rice.
Fred Harvey Hollywood Restaurant, 1743 N. Cahuenga Blvd. The
usual standards of the Harvey Houses carried out here in modern dress.
Gotham Cafe, 7050 Hollywood Blvd. Combination delicatessen and
restaurant. Paprika chicken is a dinner specialty; the Gotham Special
Sandwich, big enough for two, is an all-day specialty ; and for midnight
supper, small hot cakes served with sour cream are featured.
Gourmet Hollywood, 6534 Sunset Blvd. Outdoor tables in patio.
Good food.
The Hollywood Tropics, 1525 N. Vine St. So atmospheric you feel
the rainy season coming on.
Al Levy s Tavern, 1623 N. Vine St. A Hollywood standby for lunch
eon, dinner, late supper, and cocktails. Steaks and roastbeef are
features.
Lucey s Cafe, 5444 Melrose Ave. Italian food in an atmosphere of
quiet conservatism.
Melody Lane of Hollywood, Vine St. at Hollywood Blvd., world
famous street intersection. (Branches downtown and in Wilshire dis
trict.) Open all night. Concert music, afternoons. Moderate prices.
Musso and Frank Grill, 6667 Hollywood Blvd. Dinner a la carte
only. Steaks, and salad mixed at your table, are favorites.
Palm s Grill, 5931 Hollywood Blvd. One of the few good outdoor
restaurants in Los Angeles. Indoor dining room also.
BEVERLY HILLS AND THE SUNSET STRIP
Armstrong & Schroder, 9766 Wilshire Blvd. Salads are exceptional,
cheese bread rolls notable. Booths and counter. No entertainment.
Bit of Sweden, 9051 Sunset Blvd. Smorgasbord with more than 75
delicacies. The dinner is excellent; for dessert Swedish apple pie is
featured.
Bublichki Russian Cafe, 8846 Sunset Blvd. Dinner only. Superb
Russian food with atmosphere. Russian orchestra. Bar.
XXX RESTAURANTS
House of Murphy, 4th St. at La Cienega Blvd. The a la carte entree
is a complete meal. Cornbeef and cabbage cooked in old-fashioned dish
style. Master of ceremonies Bob Murphy provides impromptu enter
tainment and the crowd chimes in.
Lawry s, Inc., 150 N. La Cienega Blvd. Dinner only. A huge, suc
culent beef roast is wheeled to the table, and cut to individual order.
The Marcus Daly, 314 N. Camden Dr. Lunch (winter only) ; dinner
from 5 p.m. ; no couvert. A novel decorative feature is the Zodiac Bar,
where time is shown on an overhead dome. The food is good, the
atmosphere pleasant.
Peri-no s Roof, 9600 Wilshire Blvd. (Saks Fifth Ave.). Luncheon, tea,
dinner. A la carte only. Elegant atmosphere, notable cuisine.
The Victor Hugo, 233 N. Beverly Dr. Couvert after 9 p.m. The
continental lunch is a gourmet s favorite. First-rate French cuisine.
Advance reservation necessary for the movie stars impromptu Sunday
night shows with dancing to name-bands.
CAFETERIAS
For those who wish to pick and choose, a few cafeterias are named :
Clifton s Brookdale, 648 S. Broadway, and Clifton s Cafeteria of the
Golden Rule, 618 S. Olive St. Organ music and singing attendants.
A novel feature at both places is the bulletin board just outside the
entrance, where listings are displayed for employment, barter, sight
seeing, and appeals for congenial friendship. At Brookdale a "country"
atmosphere has been created with artificial trees, vines, brook, and
waterfall. Inexpensive.
Fern, 665 S. La Brea Ave. Exceptionally good food, moderate prices.
Ontra, 757 S. Vermont Ave. in midtown Los Angeles, and 1719 N.
Vine St. in Hollywood. Brighter and cheerier than most cafeterias.
Also more expensive.
Schaber, 620 S. Broadway. Quiet and conservative in appearance and
clientele; on the expensive side.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas8sjjs8s*>>>ss8s
Night Clubs
As in all large cities, the quality of Los Angeles after-dark enter
tainment varies. There is the honky-tonk area of Main Street and
East Fifth Street, where semi-nude "B-girls" have brought Los Angeles
nationwide notoriety by way of national magazine articles. There is
also the fabulously chic Sunset Strip and Hollywood area, even more
widely publicized.
These are the extremes, and most visitors will find a peek at both
interesting. However, the heavy volume of Los Angeles night life
pours through the relatively insignificant neighborhood bars, cocktail
lounges, dine-and-dance establishments. Hundreds of thousands of
Angelenos are acquainted with neither Main Street nor The Strip.
Following is a list, alphabetically arranged, of a few of the more
widely-known clubs. Policies and times of events are those in effect
in the Fall of 1940, and are of course subject to change.
DOWNTOWN
Biltmore Bowl, Biltmore Hotel, 515 S. Olive St. Dinner from 7:30
p.m.; no couvert. Orchestra; dancing. Two floor revues nightly.
Bar. Much frequented by "visiting firemen" and the football crowd
during the season.
Cafe Casino, 425 S. Main St. Prices reasonable. You can use your
own judgment where to stop. Very ripe entertainment. Oldtime bur
lesque with seminude girls.
Paris Inn, 210 East Market St. Dinner from 5:30 p.m. Orchestra.
Dancing. Floor shows 8 p.m. and n p.m. Separate bar. A rather
unusual bar and singing waiters. Closed Sundays.
WILSHIRE DISTRICT
Cocoanut Grove, Ambassador Hotel, 3400 Wilshire Blvd. Dinner from
7 p.m. ; couvert charge. Orchestra ; dancing. Floor show 1 1 p.m. Bar.
Very popular; consistently good entertainment.
XXX11 NIGHT CLUBS
Town House, 639 S. Commonwealth Ave. The Zebra Room is fre
quented by the young set. A more conservative atmosphere in the
Wedgewood Room.
Wilshire Bowl, Inc., 5665 Wilshire Blvd. Dinner 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.,
no couvert.
HOLLYWOOD
Beachcomber Cafe, 1727 N. McCadden PL Prices are slightly stiff.
Specializes in Oriental food and drinks. Frequented by the many lesser
Hollywood actors.
Earl Carroll s Theater-Restaurant, 6230 Sunset Blvd. Dinner from
7 :3O to 1 1 p.m., no couvert ; without dinner, admission charge. Two
acts with 30 principals and 6ogirl revue. Shows, 9 and 12 p.m. For
those who like girl shows and revolving stages.
Florentine Gardens, 5955 Hollywood Blvd. Dinner from 6:30 p.m.,
no couvert. Without dinner, a small admission charge. Orchestra.
Dancing. Cocktail lounge. Three floor shows nightly. Girl revues.
Situated in the heart of Hollywood. ^
Grace Hayes Lodge, 11345 Ventura Blvd. (north of town). Dinner,
no couvert. Minimum charge. A gay informality. Celebs, if in the
mood, usually put on impromptu acts quality varies.
"It" Cafe, 1637 N. Vine St. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Supper 10 p.m.
to 2 a.m. No couvert. Dancing. No floor show. Bar.
La Conga Club, Inc., 1551 N. Vine St. Dinner from 7 p.m. No
couvert. Two orchestras; two revolving orchestra stages; continuous
dancing. No floor show. Bar.
Slapsy Maxie Rosenbloom s Cafe, 7165 Beverly Blvd. Dinner from
6 p.m. No couvert. Orchestra, but no dancing by patrons. Three
or four funny floor shows nightly, with Deadpan Maxie in the middle
of things.
Seven Seas Cafe, 6904 Hollywood Blvd. Dinner from 6 p.m. No
couvert. Hawaiian orchestra and entertainers, dressed in native cos
tumes. Floor shows n and 12 p.m. and 2 a.m. Bar. Dancing from
8 130 p.m. Hawaiian Island atmosphere, complete with "rain on the
roof."
NIGHT CLUBS XXX111
BEVERLY HILLS AND THE SUNSET STRIP
Bali Restaurant, 8804 Sunset Blvd. Dinner; no couvert, no minimum.
Atmosphere in keeping with the name. Light, risque entertainment.
East Indian curry a specialty.
Beverly-Wilshire, 9514 Wilshire Blvd. Dinner. Separate bar. Danc
ing.
Cafe LaMaze, 9039 Sunset Blvd. Dinner. Dancing to name-bands.
Special entertainment. Separate bar.
Giro s, 8433 Sunset Blvd. Dinner 7 to 10 p.m.; couvert charge. Or
chestra. Dancing to 2 a.m. A favorite spot with movie folks. Patrons
are requested to dress formally on Saturday. Somewhat expensive.
Victor Hugo. (See Restaurants.)
SOUTHGATE
Topsy s Cafe, 2800 Firestone Blvd. Dinner from 6 p.m. No couvert.
Floor shows, 9:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Bar. Orchestra. Dancing.
Closed Mon.
&&3&&^^^
Recreational Facilities
Following is a partial list of facilities available:
Aquaplaning: Manhattan, Hermosa, and Newport-Balboa Beaches.
Baseball: Wrigley Field, 435 E. 42nd PL, used by Los Angeles
"Angels"; Hollywood Baseball Park (Gilmore Field), 7700 Beverly
Blvd., used by Hollywood "Stars." Both teams are members of the
Pacific Coast League. Girl s professional softball leagues play at Los
Angeles Softball Park, 1650 W. Slauson Ave., Mon. to Fri. nights,
inclusive, and at Fiedler Field, 470 So. Fairfax Ave., as scheduled.
Basketball: Collegiate basketball is played during the season, Novem
ber to March, at Pan-Pacific Auditorium, 7600 Beverly Blvd., on
scheduled dates, by southern section of Pacific Coast Conference, com
prising U.S.C. and U.C.L.A.
Beaches: Following is a list of the more important beaches in the
area and approximate distance in miles from downtown Los Angeles;
those marked (M) or (C) are municipal or county-owned respectively:
Malibu, 31; Santa Monica (C), 15-18; Ocean Park (M), 15-18;
Venice (M), 13-14; Playa del Rey (M), 15-16; El Segundo, 18;
Manhattan (C), 18-19; Hermosa (M), 19-20; Redondo (M), 20-21;
Palos Verdes, 22-23; Cabrillo (M), 24-26; Long Beach (M), 20-23;
Seal, 26-29; Huntington, 32-35; Newport, 38-41; Balboa, 39-42.
Boating and Yachting: Small boats available at most of the mountain
lake resorts. At most of the major beaches, sailboats, speedboats and
powerboats can be chartered with operators. Rowboats, electric motor-
boats, and canoes can be rented at Echo, Hollenbeck, Lincoln, and
Westlake Parks. Collegiate rowing contests held on Marine Rowing
Course at Long Beach and Ballona Creek. Prominent yacht clubs are :
Balboa Yacht Club, Los Angeles Yacht Club, California Yacht Club,
Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Long Beach Yacht Club, and others.
XXXVI RECREATIONAL FACILITIES
Bowling: Arlington Bowl, 2225 W. Washington Blvd., 8 lanes; open
10 a.m. -2 a.m. Beverly Hills Bowling Courts, 9244 Wilshire Blvd.,
1 6 lanes; open n a.m.- 12 p.m. Boulevard Bowl, 5766 Hollywood
Blvd., Hollywood, 8 lanes; open 10 a.m. -2 a.m. Bowling shoes free.
Hollywood Recreations, Inc., 1539 N. Vine St., Hollywood, 22 lanes;
open 10 a.m.-2 a.m. Pico Palace-Columbia Recreation Center, 6081
W. Pico Blvd., 19 lanes; open 10 a.m.-2 a.m. Southwest Bowling
Center, 7023 Pacific Blvd., Huntington Park, 16 lanes; open 10 a.m.-
2 a.m. (Sun. 9 a.m. -3 p.m.). Studio Bowling Academy, 1053 S. Ver
mont Ave., 14 lanes; open 9 a.m. -2 a.m. Sunset Center, 5842 Sunset
Blvd., Hollywood, 52 lanes; open 10 a.m.-2 a.m. Wilshire Recrea
tions, 737 S. La Brea Ave., 28 lanes; open 9 a.m. -2 a.m.
Boxing: Hollywood Legion Stadium, 1628 N. El Centro Ave. (pro
fessional), Fri., 8:30 p.m.; Ocean Park Arena, Pico and Main, Santa
Monica (professional), Mon. 8:30 p.m.; Wilmington Bowl, Anaheim
Blvd. at Mahar, Wilmington (professional), Wed., 8:30 p.m.; Jeffries
Barn, 2422 Victory Blvd., Burbank (amateur), Thurs. 8:30 p.m.;
South End Athletic Club, Main and 97th Sts. (amateur), Thurs.,
8:30 p.m.
Fishing (ocean) : Surf fishing at most beaches. Pier fishing from
Santa Monica Municipal Pier, end of Colorado Ave., Santa Monica;
Lick Pier, end of Navy St., Ocean Park; Sunset Municipal Pier, Venice
Blvd. and Ocean Front, Venice ; Hyperion Pier, El Segundo ; Manhat
tan Municipal Pier, Manhattan Beach; Hermosa Beach Municipal
pier, Hermosa Beach; Redondo Municipal Pier, Redondo Beach; San
Pedro Sport Fishing Dock, end of 22nd St., San Pedro; Belmont Pier,
Termino Ave. and Beach, Long Beach. Barge fishing. Shore boats to
barges leave from piers. Larger fishing boats accommodating 16 to 40
persons at most fishing piers. Boats for deep-sea fishing may be char
tered. Regarding fresh water fishing, consult Department of Natural
Resources, California State Bldg., or sporting goods stores.
Fishing Licenses: Licenses and latest information obtainable at most
sporting goods stores. Fishing, inland or ocean, requires a license for
all except non-game marine fish. License year Jan. I to Dec. 31.
Resident citizens, $2; nonresident citizens, $3; aliens, $5; under 18
no license required.
Football: The University of Southern California and the Univer
sity of California at Los Angeles, both participating in the Pacific
Coast Conference, play home games in Memorial Coliseum, 3911 S.
RECREATIO/NAL FACILITIES XXXVll
Figueroa St.; adm. is set by Conference and depends upon game s im
portance. Loyola University, and Los Angeles Bulldogs (professionals),
usually play their home games at Gilmore Stadium, 100 N. Fairfax
Ave. ; Occidental College, at college field, 1600 Campus Road, Eagle
Rock (Southern California Conference) ; the Annual Rose Bowl Game,
at Pasadena Rose Bowl, on New Year s Day.
Golf: Municipal courses in Griffith Park; two i8-hole; one g-hole.
Other public courses: Sunset Fields, 3701 Stocker Ave., two i8-hole;
Western Ave. Golf Course, I2ist St. and Western Ave., 18 holes;
Rancho Public Golf Course, 10100 W. Pico Blvd., 18 holes. Many
other public and private courses throughout city and county.
Hockey: Collegiate games at Tropical Ice Gardens, Jan. to middle
of March, every Sat., 7:30 p.m.
Horseback Riding: Municipal bridle trails in Griffith Park and Arroyo
Seco. Many private stables where horses can be rented.
Horse Racing: Santa Anita (see Tour 5), Arcadia, approximately 14
miles from downtown Los Angeles; 1941 Season: Dec. 28 (1940)-
Nov. 9 (1941) ; mutuels. Hollywood Park (see Tour 1), Inglewood,
about ii miles from downtown Los Angeles; 1940 Season: June 8-
Aug. 10; mutuels. Del Mar, in San Diego County, is popular with
Los Angeles residents and visitors; distance 105 miles; mutuels. Har
ness and running races at Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, Sept.
Hunting: Deer, Aug. 10 to Sept. 9. No does, fawns or spike bucks.
No sale of venison or skins. Two bucks per season. Quail (Valley,
Desert, Mountain), Nov. 15 to Dec. 31, 1940; 10 per day, 10 in pos
session, 20 per week all species. Pheasant, Nov. 15 to 20, 194041 ;
2 male birds a day, 2 in possession; hens prohibited. Doves, Sept. I
to Oct. 15; 12 a day, 12 in possession, 30 a week. Pigeons, Dec. I to
15, 1940; 10 a day, 10 in possession, 20 a week. Ducks, Oct. 16
to Dec. 14, 1940; 10 a day, 20 in possession, 30 a week. Geese, Oct.
1 6 to Dec. 14, 1940; 3 a day, 4 in possession, 8 a week. State regu
lations may be changed biennially; federal regulations, annually.
Hunting Licenses: License year July I to June 30. Residents under
1 8, $i ; resident citizens, $2; nonresident citizens, $10; declarant aliens,
$10; other aliens, $25. Deer tags, $i.
Midget Auto Racing: Atlantic Stadium, Atlantic Ave. and Bandini
Blvd., Tues. nights from Apr. or May until Oct. Gilmore Stadium,
XXXV111 RECREATIONAL FACILITIES
100 N. Fairfax Ave., from Apr. until Thanksgiving, Thurs. nights.
Occasional racing at Southern Ascot Speedway, Southgate ; no fixed
dates.
Mountain Camps: (County supervised) Big Pines Recreation Camp
(see Tour 7), in Angeles National Forest, 85 miles from Los Angeles;
6,864 ft. elevation; summer and winter sports. Crystal Lake Recrea
tion Camp (see Tour IB), in Angeles National Forest; 50 miles from
Los Angeles; 5,717 ft. elevation; summer and winter sports. (City
supervised) Camp Seeley (see Tour 1), in San Bernardino Mountains,
near Lake Arrowhead; 75 miles from Los Angeles; 4,700 ft. elevation;
summer and winter sports. Camp High Sierra in the High Sierras;
335 miles from Los Angeles; 8,400 ft. elevation; open summer only.
Camp Radford in San Bernardino Mountains; 90 miles from Los An
geles; 6,000 ft. elevation; available only for large organized groups.
Rates: for county camps apply 524 N. Spring St.; city camps apply
200 N. Spring St.
Parks and Playgrounds: There are 87 municipal parks totaling 5,486
acres. Griffith Park (see Tour B), the largest, contains 3,761 acres.
Forty-nine playgrounds are municipally controlled. They offer almost
every recreational facility. The following list of the more important
playgrounds has been keyed for convenience and brevity and provides
a comprehensive directory of playground facilities. Among the activ
ities, horseshoe pitching, volleyball, basketball, paddle tennis, ping-pong,
and croquet can be played at most playgrounds and are not keyed in
the directory.
Key:
A Archery Ranges SL Softball Diamonds Lighted
B Baseball Diamonds for Night Use
C Community Clubhouse Bldgs. SP Swimming Pool
F Football and Soccer Fields T Tennis Courts
S Softball Diamonds TL Tennis Courts Lighted
for Night Use
Playgrounds: Anderson Memorial, 828 S. Mesa, San Pedro (C-SL-
T-SP) ; Banning, 1331 Eubank St., Wilmington (C-SL-T) ; Benedict,
1811 Ripple St. (C-SL) ; Cabrillo, 38th St. and Bluff PL, San Pedro
(C-S); Central, 1357 E. 22nd St. (C-SP) ; Daniels Field, 845 I2th
St., San Pedro (B-C-F-S) ; Downey, 1772 N. Spring St. (C-B-SL-
SP-T-F); Echo, 1632 Bellevue Ave. (C-SL-TL) ; El Sereno, 2501
Eastern Ave. (C-S-SP-T) ; Elysian, 1900 Bishop Rd. (SL-T) ; Ever
green, 2839 E. 4th St. (C-B-SL-SP-T-F) ; Exposition, 3981 S. Hoover
St. (C-S-SP-TL); Fernangeles, 8851 Laurel Canyon Blvd. (C-B-S-
RECREATIONAL FACILITIES XXXIX
SP-F); Fresno, 1016 S. Fresno St. (C-B-SL-F) ; Griffith, Riverside
Dr. and Los Feliz Blvd. (C-B-SL-SP-TL-F) ; Harvard, 6120 Denker
Ave. (C-B-SL-F-TL); Hazard, 2230 Norfolk St. (C-B-SL-T-F) ;
Highland Park, 6150 Piedmont Ave. (C-B-SL-SP-TL) ; Lincoln
Heights, 2605 Manitou Ave. (B-C-F-S) ; Manchester, 8800 S. Hoover
St. (C-B-SL-SO-TL-F-A); Mayberry, 2408 Mayberry (S-F) ; North
Hollywood, 5301 Tujunga Blvd. (C-B-SL-TL-F) ; Oakwood, 767
California St., Venice (C-TL) ; logth St., 1500 E. logth St. (S-F);
Pecan, 127 S. Pecan St. (C-SL) ; Queen Anne, 1245 Queen Anne PL
(C-SL-T); Poinsettia, 7341 Willoughby Ave. (C-SL-TL) ; Poplar,
2630 Pepper St. (S) ; Rancho Cienega, 5000 Exposition Blvd. (A-B-
S-T-F); Reseda, 18411 Victory Blvd. (C-B-SL-SP-F) ; Roscoe, 8133
Vineland Ave. (C-SL-SP-TL) ; Ross Snyder, 1501 E. 4ist St. (C-B-
SL-TL-F-A) ; James Slauson, 1244 E. 6ist St. (C-B-S-T-F) ; South
Park, 345 E. 5ist St. (SL) ; State Street, 716 N. State St. (C-SL) ;
Stonehurst, moi Wicks Ave. (A-B) ; Sunland, 8700 Foothill Blvd.
Tujunga (BB) ; Van Nuys, 14301 Van Owen Blvd. (SL-T) ; Ver-
dugo, 3580 Verdugo Rd. (C-B-SL-SP-TL-F); Vineyard, 2942 Vine
yard St. (C-S); West Los Angeles, 1831 Stoner Ave. (C-B-SL-SP-
T-F); Yosemite, 1840 Yosemite Dr., Eagle Rock (C-B-SL-SP-T-F).
Polo: Riviera Country Club, Sunset Blvd. and Capri Dr., Pacific
Palisades, games nearly every Sun., 2:30 p.m.; Will Rogers Memorial
Field, Sunset and Chautauqua Blvds., Pacific Palisades, games nearly
every Sun., 2 130 p.m. ; Midwick Country Club, Ramona and Atlantic
Blvds., Monterey Park, Sun., 2:30 p.m. (Note: Special adm. prices
at all tournament games.)
Skating, Ice: Pan Pacific Ice Arena, 7600 Beverly Blvd. Largest
indoor rink in the United States (22,000 sq. ft,). Polar Palace, 615
N. Vine St., Hollywood. (Season, June to Sept.). Aft. 2-5 p.m.;
eve., 8-1 1 p.m.; Sat. and Sun. 9:30-12 a.m.; skates may be rented.
Special price session for children under 16 yrs. Sat. morning and after
noon. Tropical Ice Gardens, Community Park, Westwood Village.
(Open all year) Morn. 8:30-12 a.m.; aft. I 130-4 p.m.; skates may be
rented.
Skating, Roller: Lincoln Park Roller Rink, 2037 Lincoln Park Ave.
Aft. 2:30-5 p.m.; eve. 7:30-10:15 p.m. (Fri. 7-10 p.m.). Shrine
Roller Rink, 700 W. 32nd St. Aft. 2-5 p.m.; eve. 8-n p.m. Roller-
drome, 11105 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City. Eve. 8-11 p.m.;
Sat. and Sun. aft. 2-5 p.m. Hollywood Rollerbowl, 1452 N. Bron-
son Ave., Hollywood. Aft. 2-5 p.m.; eve. 7:45-11 p.m.
xl RECREATIOXAL FACILITIES
Skiing, Tobogganing, Winter Sports: Municipal Camp Seeley and the
two county camps, Crystal Lake and Big Pines (see Mountain Camps).
Equipment for rent.
Soccer: Los Angeles Soccer League, comprising best teams in this sec
tion, play at Loyola Stadium, 1901 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, Sunday
afternoons, almost the year around.
Swimming (see Parks and Playgrounds} : All municipal pools are out
door pools, open only during summer. Fernangeles, Downey, and Ver-
dugo are shallow children s pools. (See also Beaches). Municipal
recreation department, A.A.U., and collegiate swimming meets often
are held at Los Angeles Swimming Stadium, among largest swim cen
ters in U. S., at Exposition Park.
Tennis (see Parks and Playgrounds) : No permit needed for indi
vidual play on municipal courts. For special group use or tournaments,
permit must be obtained. Fee is charged for use of night-lighted
courts. Top-ranking tournament tennis played at Los Angeles Tennis
Stadium, 5851 Clinton St., each summer.
Wrestling: Olympic Auditorium, 1801 S. Grand Ave., Weds., 8:30
p.m.; Hollywood Legion Stadium, 1628 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood,
Mons., 8 130 p.m. ; Eastside Arena Club, 3400 E. Pico Blvd., Thurs.,
8:30 p.m.; Huntington Park Coliseum, 2010 E. Gage Ave., Hunting-
ton Park, Fri., 8 130 p.m. ; Pasadena Arena, Fair Oaks Ave. and Olive
St. (professional), Mons., 8:30 p.m.; Wilmington Bowl, Anaheim
Blvd. at Mahar St., Wilmington (professional), Tues., 8:30 p.m.;
Ocean Park Arena, Pico and Main Sts., Santa Monica (professional),
Fri., 8:30 p.m.
^
Calendar of Annual Events
Note: nfd means no fixed date.
JANUARY
i
i
i
ist week, nfd
5 days nfd (in
Jan., Feb., Mar.,
Apr., May)
Pasadena
Pasadena
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
country clubs
Location shifts
ist week and sue- Los Angeles
cessive Sundays
Jan. through Apr.
Sundays
nfd
nfd
ist week
2 days nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Griffith Park
Monterey Park
Midwick Coun
try Club
Los Angeles
various courses
Arcadia (Santa
Anita Race
Track)
Big Bear Lake
San Bernardino
Mountains
Los Angeles
Shrine Audito
rium
Wilmington, Cali
fornia Yacht
Club
Pasadena
xli
Tournament of Roses
Intersectional Football Game
Chinese Independence Day
Los Angeles $10,000 Open
Golf Tournament
Southern California Skeet As
sociation Inter - Club Team
and Three-man Team
Matches
Los Angeles Metropolitan Ten
nis Championships
Annual Pacific Coast Elimina
tion Championship Polo
Matches
Southern California Open Golf
Tournaments
Santa Anita Derby
Winter Sports Carnival and Ski
Jumping Championships
(Junior Chamber of Com
merce sponsor)
Coast Conference Basketball
Season opening
Sunkist Dinghy Sailing Cham
pionship Series
Pasadena Open Golf Tourna
ment
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS
J A N u A R Y Continued
17 Los Angeles,
Olvera Street
and Plaza
Church
Hollywood,
Plummer Park
24 or nfd, 8-day Los Angeles,
celebration in- China City
eludes Chinese
New Year
nfd
Long Beach
Marine Stadium
El Dia de San Anton (Sp.,
Saint Anthony s Day). An
ton, patron saint of animals,
is revered by the annual pro
cession and Benedicion de los
Animales (Sp., blessing of
the animals). Domestic pets
are welcomed
Trao Chun (Festival of the
Kitchen God.) Chinese cere
monials preparatory to the
New Year, which is about
the 28th of month
Grand Prix Pacific Coast In
board Regatta
FEBRUARY
3 days first part
of month
nfd
4 days approx. nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Santa Catalina
Island
Los Angeles
Catalina Channel
Arcadia (Santa
Anita Race
Track)
Pasadena Civic
Auditorium
Los Angeles
China City
Los Angeles
Harbor
Pasadena Bad
minton Club
Los Angeles,
Arroyo Seco
Parkway
Los Angeles
Municipal
Playgrounds
Catalina Open Golf Tourna
ment
Boat and Aircraft Show
Midwinter Sailing Regatta
Santa Anita Derby
Annual Pasadena Dog Show
Teng Chieh (Chinese: Feast of
the Lanterns)
Inter-Club Racing Series (Los
Angeles Yacht Club)
Southern California Badminton
Championships (all cham
pions)
Southern California Annual
Open Lawn Bowling Tour
nament
Playground Kite Tourney
(about 2500 contestants)
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS xllii
F E B R u A R Y continued
3rd week to Apr. Sierra Madre
nfd
22
Los Angeles
Harbor
Wistaria Fete, celebrating blos
soming of world s largest wis
taria vine
Southern California Yacht As
sociation Midwinter Regatta.
Cal. Yacht Club
MARCH
First Saturday Long Beach
Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
All 2nd week
nfd
nfd 2 days
nfd
nfd
Southern Pacific Association
Amateur Athletic Union Re
lay and Field Meet (properly
named the Long Beach Re-
lays)
Hollywood Easter Sunrise Service
(Bowl)
Glendale (Forest Easter Sunrise Service
Lawn), and
many other places
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Harbor
El Segundo
Arcadia (Santa
Anita Race
Track)
State- wide
Los Angeles
Arcadia, Rancho
Santa Anita
San Pedro
Los Angeles
Riviera Country
Club
Girls Doll Festival (Japanese)
International Tennis Matches
San Clemente I3omile Yacht
Race
Kite Day
Santa Anita Handicap Race
California Conservation (of
natural resources) Week
Blooming Tulip and Hyacinth
Season (35,000 bulbs) in
Griffith and Exposition Parks
All-breed Santa Anita Kennel
Club Charity Show
Guadalupe Island Yacht Race
(from San Pedro to Guada
lupe Island and return)
Horse Show, Easter Parade,
and All-Star Polo Matches
:liv CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS
nfd
nfd
nfd through
Thanksgiving
nfd
nfd
MARC H continued
Los Angeles West Side Tennis Club invita
tional Tournament
Los Angeles, Professional Golf Association
various courses Open Meeting
Los Angeles, Midget Auto Races
Atlantic Speed
way and Gilmore
Stadium
Los Angeles Ice Hockey Championship Play
off Games
Santa Monica Dudley Cup Tennis Tourna
ment (high school contest
ants)
APRIL
nfd
2 days nfd
3 days nfd
ist week 5 days
Through Apr. and
May
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
ist and 2nd
weeks, nfd
nfd
Late April
through May
Los Angeles
Pasadena
Santa Catalina
Island
Pasadena
Los Angeles
County Museum
Exposition Park
Pasadena
Long Beach
Marine Stadium
Pasadena Brook-
side Park
Beverly Hills
Los Angeles
Newhall vicinity
Los Angeles
Harbor
Beverly Hills
Los Angeles
Exposition Park
Southern California Golf Tour
nament
Pasadena Spring Flower Show
Bobby Jones Trophy Tourna
ment
California Institute of Tech
nology Exhibit and Open
House
Annual Exhibition of Painting
and Sculpture
Pasadena Dog Show
Pacific Southwest Spring Mo-
torboat Sweepstakes
Southern California Spring
Flower Show
Beverly Hills Dog Show
Southern California Band and
Music Festival
Newhall-Saugus Rodeo
Gold Cup Yachting, California
Yacht Club
Beverly Hills Tennis Cham
pionships
Los Angeles County Museum
Wild Flower Show
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS xlv
i week, early in
month
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
3 weeks nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
3rd week 2 days
10 days nfd
25
Late May
30
MAY
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
(Olvera Street)
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Compton
Location shifts
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Exposition Park
Los Angeles
Santa Monica
Bay
San Pedro,
Cabrillo Beach
Los Angeles
Harbor
Pasadena, Civic
Auditorium
Harbor cities
Los Angeles
Harbor
All communities
Boys Festival (Japanese)
Mexican Celebration of Cinco
de Mayo and Fiesta de las
Cruces (Sp., fifth of May
and Feast of the Crosses)
Southern California Festival of
Allied Arts (presentations)
Southern California Women s-
Golf Championship Matches>
Southern California Tennis As
sociation Team Champion
ship Matches
Los Angeles Kennel Club Show
Eisteddfod (Welsh Musical
Celebration)
Invitation Track and Field
Meet (West and Middle
West)
Invitation Amateur Golf Cham
pionship of Southern Califor
nia Golf Association
Los Angeles Country Club In
vitation Tournament
Giant Trade Exhibit
Women s International Bowl
ing Congress Tournaments
Annual Salt Water Carnival
and Rough Water Swimming
Competition (auspices of
Santa Monica Junior College)
Harbor Day Aquatics (auspices
Junior Chamber of Com
merce)
San Clemente Island Yacht
Race
Pasadena Music Festival
Harbor Day
Annual Predicted Yacht Races
Memorial Day Observance
xlvi CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS
i through Sept.
ist week through
summer
ist week 3 days
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd 3 days
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
3 or 4 days
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
June or July nfd
2nd week
through Oct.
JUNE
Santa Catalina
Island
Hollywood
(Bowl)
Altadena
Flfntridge
Riding Club
Los Angeles Me
morial Coliseum
Los Angeles
various courts
Los Angeles
Arcadia, Santa
Anita Park
Redondo
Los Angeles
Griffith Park
Long Beach
Marine Stadium
San Fernando
From San Pedro
Santa Catalina
Island
Los Angeles
Hollywood
Around Santa
Catalina Island
Inglewood
Ocean Park, Venice
From San Diego
to Santa Barbara
Opening of Santa Catalina Is
land Fishing Tournament
"Symphonies Under the Stars"
Festival of the Mountains
Children s Horse Show
Southern California Music Fes
tival
Southern California College
Tennis Championships
Riviera Horse Show
Sheriff s Relief Association Bar
becue Picnic
Covered Wagon Days
Men s Public Links City Golf
Championships
Southern Outboard Association
Regatta
San Fernando Fiesta and Pa
geant
Tri-Island Sailing Race of 250
miles San Pedro, around
San Clemente, Santa Barbara
and Santa Catalina Islands
Catalina Women s Invitation
Golf Tournament
Los Angeles City Golf Tourna
ment Matches
Hollywood Golf and Country
Club Invitation Tournament
Yacht Race around Santa Cata
lina Island, Los Angeles
Yacht Club sponsor
Hollywood Turf Club Horse
Races
Children s Floral Pageant
Southern California Salt Water
Fishing Tournament (Los
Angeles Junior Chamber of
Commerce sponsor)
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS xlvii
JULY
4 Los Angeles, Fourth of July Celebrations in
Pasadena Los Angeles Coliseum and
Pasadena Rose Bowl
4 biennially Location shifts California to Honolulu Yacht
Races
4 biennially San Pedro All Channel Islands Yacht
Race
4 Long Beach Craig Trophy Race (for big
sloops)
i week nfd Los Angeles Riviera Country Club Invita
tion Golf Tournament
July and Aug. nfd Hollywood Bowl "Symphonies Under the Stars"
July and Aug. nfd Hollywood Pilgrimage Play (Life of
Christ)
nfd Los Angeles Times Trophy Race
Harbor
nfd Around Santa Stewart Bros. Auxiliary Han-
Catalina Island dicap Race
nfd Avalon to Her- Santa Catalina Island-Manhat-
mosa Beach tan-Hermosa Beach Aqua
plane Race
nfd Del Mar Del Mar Turf Club Race
Meeting
nfd (both month Long Beach The Hearst Regatta
and day vary (Long Beach
from year to Stadium usually)
year)
nfd (both month Long Beach Model Yacht Races
and day vary (Long Beach
frcm year to Stadium usually)
year)
nfd (both month Long Beach Outboard Races
and day vary (Long Beach
from year to Stadium usually)
year)
nfd (both month Long Beach Sailing Races
and day vary (Long Beach
from year to Stadium usually)
year)
nfd Los Angeles Riviera Horse Show
xlvifi CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS
J u L Y continued
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Pasadena
Inglewood
Los Angeles
Harbor
Los Angeles
various parks
Los Angeles
Swim Stadium
Los Angeles
Vista del Arroyo Tennis Tour
nament
Centinela Garden Clubs
Flower Show
Nordlinger Trophy Yacht
Race
Metropolitan Junior Tennis
Championships
Aquatic Pentathlon
Soapbox Derby
AUGUST
ist and 2nd week Long Beach
nfd 3 days
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Aug. or Sept. nfd
nfd
Venice
Los Angeles
Griffith Park
Los Angeles
Hotel Ambas
sador
Santa Monica
Los Angeles
Santa Monica
Canyon
Avalon
Los Angeles
Swim Stadium
Long Beach
Marine Stadium
Santa Catalina
Island
Newport Harbor
Los Angeles
Southern California Yachting
Association Regatta
Mardi Gras
Metropolitan Junior Tennis
Championship Finals
Ambassador Tennis Club Tour
nament
Santa Monica Tennis Cham
pionships
Pacific Coast Public Parks Ten
nis Championships
Five-mile Swim (to Venice)
and Water Carnival
Paddleboard Race (from Ava
lon to Cabrillo Beach)
Aquatic Show (Junior Cham
ber of Commerce sponsor)
Southern California Outboard
Regatta Championships
Commodore s Yacht Race (to
the Island Isthmus)
Tournament of Lights
Nisei Festival (celebration
week of Second Generation
of local Japanese-Americans)
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS xlix
SEPTEMBER
ist Monday
8 and 9
nfd
8 days nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
2 weeks Sept. and
Oct. nfd
10
27
9 days in early
winter, nfd
nfd
2 days, nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Los Angeles
San Gabriel
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Swim Stadium
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Griffith Park
Long Beach
Bixby Park
Los Angeles
Riviera
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
San Pedro
Pomona
Labor Day Parade
La Fiesta de San Gabriel (Sp.,
The Feast of St. Gabriel)
Los Angeles Birthday Celebra
tions, Pageant from San Ga
briel Mission to City Hall
Metropolitan Swim and Dive
Championships
Pacific Southwest Tennis
Championships
Women s Public Links City
Golf Championships
"Biggest Picnic in the World"
(estimated attendance 150,
ooo)
Children s Country Club Horse
Show and Pet Parade
La Fiesta de las Flores (Sp.,
the feast of the flowers)
Pacific Southwest Tennis
Championship Matches
Opening Gold Cup Sloop Sail
ing Series
Los Angeles County Fair (Run
ning and Harness Races)
OCTOBER
Los Angeles
(Chinatown)
Los Angeles
Harbor
Los Angeles
Pasadena Car-
melita Gardens
Los Angeles
Long Beach
Marine Stadium
Pasadena
Los Angeles
Anniversary of Founding of the
Chinese Republic
Navy Day
Los Angeles Annual Automo
bile Show
Pasadena Fall Flower Show
Riviera Country Club Horse
Show
Annual Pacific Coast Inboard
Regatta
Annual Pasadena Weed Show
Great Western Live Stock
Show, Union Stock Yards
1 CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS
NOVEMBER
ii All communities Armistice Day Celebration
nfd Los Angeles Union Great Western Livestock Show
Stockyards and Rodeo
nfd Los Angeles Grand Prix Midget Auto Races
i week nfd Los Angeles San Francisco Opera Company
presentation
Nov. and Dec. Los Angeles Golden Gloves Championship
nfd Matches
2nd week Sierra Madre Cascade Chrysanthemum
Flower Show
nfd Pasadena Pasadena City Amateur Bad
minton Championship Tour
nament
nfd Arcadia, Rancho California Horsemen s Western
Santa Anita Horse Show
nfd Los Angeles Me- Football Carnival Charity
morial Coliseum Game
Late Nov. to Hollywood Santa Claus Lane s Nightly
Christmas Hollywood Blvd. Parades (except Sunday)
DECEMBER
12
16-24
nfd
nfd
nfd
nfd
Los Angeles
(Olvera Street)
Los Angeles
(Olvera Street)
Location shifts
Inglewood
Hollywood Turf
Club
Long Beach
Alhambra
Mexican celebration of Nuestra
Senora de Guadalupe (Sp.,
Our Lady of Guadalupe)
Mexican celebration of Las Po
sadas (Sp., the lodgings). A
unique observance of Mary
and Joseph s journey to Beth
lehem
Pacific Coast Intracircuit Polo
Championship Matches
"Bridge Tournament Under
the Stars" (world s largest
bridge tournament, attracts
more than 1000 players)
Southern California midwinter
Championship Tennis Tour
naments
All-States Barbecue
CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS ll
D E c E M B E R continued
Late Dec. to Arcadia, Santa Pari-mutuel Horse Racing
March, nfd Anita Track
Last 2 weeks Altadena The Parade of the Deodars
Christmas Tree Lane (one
mile of lighted living Christ
mas trees)
HOME-STATE PICNICS
All State picnics are held in Sycamore Grove Park with the exception of the
Iowa picnics, which are held in Lincoln Park, Los Angeles, in the winter, and
Bixby Park, Long Beach, in the summer.
For further information call Federation of State Societies, Stowell Hotel,
416 S. Spring St., MUtual 1981, Los Angeles.
Alabama Aug., 3rd Sat.
Arizona Mar., 2nd Sat.
Arkansas May, 1st Sat.
Colorado Feb. and Aug., 2nd Sun.
Connecticut May, 3rd Sat.; Oct., ist Sat.
Delaware May, 2nd Sat.
Florida Aug., 3rd Sat.
Georgia June, 2nd Sat.
Idaho No fixed month or day
Illinois Jan., next to last Sat.; Apr., July and Oct., 3rd
Sat.
Indiana Feb. and July, last Sun.
Iowa Feb., last Sat.; Aug., 2nd Sat.
Kansas Jan. 29; Apr., ist Sat.; Sept., 2nd Sat.
Kentucky May, ist Sat.
Louisiana Aug., 3rd Sat.
Maine May, 3rd Sat.; Oct., ist Sat.
Massachusetts May, 3rd Sat.; Oct., ist Sat.
Michigan Jan., ist Sat.; Mch. and Sept., 3rd Sat.
Minnesota Feb., 3rd Sat.; Sept., 4th Sat.
Mississippi Aug., 3rd Sat.
Missouri Jan., 2nd Sat.; Mch., last Sun.; Aug., 3rd Sun.
Montana Feb. 22
Nebraska Mar., 4th Sat.; July, last Sat.
Nevada Mar., 2nd Sat.
New Hampshire May, 3rd Sat.; Oct., ist Sat.
New Jersey May, 2nd Sat.
lii CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS
HOME-STATE PICNIC s continued
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Mar., 2nd Sat.
Apr. and Oct., 2nd Sat.
June, 2nd Sat.
Feb., ist Sat.
Jan., last Sat.; Aug., ist Sat.
May 30; Sept., ist Mon.
Apr. and Oct., 2nd Sat.
Mar. and Nov., ist Sat.
May, 3rd Sat.; Oct., ist Sat.
June, ist Sat.
Jan. and Aug., last Sun.
May, ist Sat.
Apr., about the 2 ist
Mar., 2nd Sat.
May, 3rd Sat.; Oct., ist Sat.
June, 2nd Sat.
Apr. and Oct., 2nd Sat.
June, 3rd Sat.; Oct., 4th Sat.
Feb., 2nd Sat.; Aug., 4th Sat.
Mar. and Aug., ist Sun.
^
PART I
Los Angeles: A General Survey
ccccccccc<c^^
The Contemporary Scene
E5 ANGELES, the metropolis of southern California and of a
vast adjoining area, is frequently regarded as one of the newer
American cities, as an outgrowth of the motion-picture industry
and as a creation of the real estate promoter. Actually, however, it
is almost as old as the nation itself, having been formally founded and
"subdivided" in the year the Revolutionary War ended more than
half a century before Chicago was incorporated. Over Los Angeles
have waved the banners of royal Spain, imperial and republican Mexico,
of the Bear Flag Republic, and, since 1847, the stars and stripes of the
United States.
That the city seems perennially young and new despite its long,
picturesque history is not surprising, for the bulk of its population is
new. Only a handful of the inhabitants are descended from pioneer
Mexican and American families. Only a small number of adult
Angelenos were born in the city. The majority of the inhabitants
have come here in recent years, mostly from the Middle West. Since
1870 the population has either doubled, tripled, or quadrupled in every
decade except two. In addition to American settlers, Los Angeles has
attracted immigrants of many races. The distribution of population
among racial groups not characteristic of other large American com
munities in 1930 included Mexicans (97,116); Japanese (21,081);
Chinese (3,009); Filipinos (3,245). Other racial groups are of much
the same proportions that characterize the average cosmopolitan city.
The Negro population is estimated at about 45,000.
Los Angeles population (1,496,792 by the 1940 census) is still
increasing rapidly. The normal influx has been accelerated in recent
years by droughts and dust storms, mortgage foreclosures, and factory
shut-downs in central, southern, and eastern states. In addition there
is a large transient population of tourists, job-hunters, climate-seekers,
elderly retired persons, and Hollywood hopefuls. It has been estimated
by the All- Year Club of Southern California that winter visitors in
crease the population by about one-half between November I and
April 30.
People who have lived here a dozen years are likely to regard them
selves as old-timers; and in a way they are justified, for even in that
relatively brief time they have witnessed one of the city s most spec
tacular eras of expansion. Length of residence in Los Angeles often
4 LOS ANGELES
replaces the weather as a conversation-starter. When strangers meet,
one of them is likely to remark: "I came out in 26. How long have
you been here?"
With these comparative newcomers, who form the majority of the
population, ties with the home state remain strong. Angelenos dearly
love to reminisce about "back East" and "back East" may be any
where east of the Rocky Mountains. Former residents of other states
gather periodically at huge picnics, usually held in the public parks.
This attachment for the old home furnishes a clue to the character
of the City of the Angels and its people. It suggests that the trans
planted settler has never quite grown used to living here, has never
quite been able to regard Los Angeles as his true home. Coming
largely from the prairie regions, of rigorous climate and even more
rigorous conventions, he suddenly finds himself in an exotic land of
lofty purple mountains, azure ocean, and mild, seductive climate, where
the romance of old Spain is nurtured and blends with the gaudiness
of Hollywood, where rigid conventions are relaxed and comparative
tolerance is the rule. To many a newcomer, Los Angeles is a modern
Promised Land. It amazes and delights him, and thaws him out physi
cally and spiritually. There is a heady fragrance in the air, and a
spaciousness of sky and land and sea that give him a new sense of
freedom and tempt him to taste new pleasures, new habits of living,
new religions. Finding himself in the amusement capital of the West
and at the hub of a vast natural playground offering every variety of
sport from surf boarding to skijoring, he proceeds to have more fun
than he ever dreamed was possible. He is fascinated by strange new
industries and new agricultural products: movie studios, oil fields,
almond orchards, vineyards, olive and orange groves. He encounters
new and exotic types of people: movie actors and sombreroed Mexicans,
kimonoed Japanese and turbaned Hindus. He develops an urge to try
things that are novel and exciting, from Chinese herb doctors to Indian
medicine men, from social credit to nudism, from a wine-colored stucco
dwelling to a restaurant shaped like a hat. And because the array of
things to do and see is so dazzlingly different from everything he has
known, his curiosity is always whetted, his appetite never sated. He
feels a certain strangeness in this place he now calls his home, a strange
ness that is at once exhilarating and disturbing, and that he had not
known in his native place "back East."
The environmental restlessness and novelty-seeking tendency provide
a key to the city s distinctive character. They help to explain why
new fads, strange cults, wildly mixed styles of architecture, and unusual
political and religious movements blossom and flourish so profusely here,
making Los Angeles a metropolis of "isms."
Even in their everyday attire, Angelenos sport the brightly-colored
THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE 5
and the bizarre. Girls wear flapping, pastel-tinted slacks. Housewives
go to market with furs thrown over cotton dresses. Boys blaze forth
in multihued silk shirts. Beach costumes are seen on urban streets
thirty miles from the sea. Schoolgirls wear gaily colored kerchiefs tied
peasant-style over their heads. Men go hatless, women stockingless.
Summer outfits are worn in winter, and vice versa.
On Main Street an occasional cowboy swaggers along in lo-gallon
hat and high-heeled boots. Fringed leather jackets, Buffalo Bill style,
are sometimes seen, and youngsters from the mountains or desert, in
town for a spree, often wear Indian beadwork vests and belts studded
with bright glass "jewels." Frequently a "messiah" of one of the
dozens of bizarre local religious cults, garbed in biblical robes made
of flour sacks, pads barefoot along a crowded sidewalk, apparently
oblivious to the stares of the curious. And the curious are apt to be
the newcomers, for seasoned Angelenos have long since become used
to living in an open-air circus.
On occasion the variety of dress is even more striking. American
business men parade in ball-fringed sombreros and dashing Spanish
scrapes during such celebrations as San Pedro s Cabrillo Day and Pasa
dena s Tournament of Roses. Japanese don flowered kimonos on Boys
Day, when huge paper fish flutter atop bamboo poles before their homes.
Mexicans wear bright sashes and scrapes on their numerous saints days
and fiestas. While these manifestations are exceptional, they vividly
color the community s life and give it its character.
To the Easterner, descending the Pacific slope after the long trip
across deserts and mountains, southern California is like a new world,
a world set off by itself, with definite geographic boundaries of moun
tain ranges and sea. Los Angeles, sprawling across the slope, is like
the capital of an empire in miniature; a land that has its own Riviera,
its Alps, and its Sahara; a domain that is richer and more diversified
than many an American state or foreign country. Los Angeles County
alone is nearly as large as Connecticut.
The visual impression of this capital of the Pacific Southwest can
be summed up in three words: whiteness, flatness, and spread. Bathed
in relentless sunshine most of the year, Our Lady the Queen of the
Angels is one of the "whitest" cities in the United States. Its newer
office buildings gleam with concrete. Its miles of homes are bright
with stucco. Glaring viaducts over the stony bed of the Los Angeles
River and a maze of unshaded concrete roads add their shining white
ness to a sun-bleached setting that culminates in the tower of the City
Hall, a long, tapering, chalk-like finger dominating the cubistic plain.
The flatness of the city is emphasized by its mighty backdrop of
mountains. Along its northern and western edges, Los Angeles ap
proaches these barrier ranges, breaking like a surf over the foothills and
6 LOS ANGELES
dashing up against the base of fire-scarred hills. Up gullies and draws
and dry gulches it creeps and swirls in a tide of plaster and of palms.
Yet for the most part the city stretches spaciously over a wide plain
descending gently from the peaks to the Pacific. In many places, par
ticularly in the level coastal areas, it is sometimes difficult to discern
the dark-blue or snow-covered crests of the distant, semicircling moun
tains.
The spread of Los Angeles arises from the fact that it is a vast
agglomerate of suburbs, loosely strung together. In area it is the largest
single municipality in the world, with 451 square miles of territory
between the mountains and the Pacific. Curiously enough, when the
pueblo was named, the Spanish founders seemed to have had a pre
monition of its ultimate expanse, for its full Spanish title is perhaps
the most prodigious place name in American geography: El Pueblo de
Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (The Town
of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula). Properly pro
nounced "Loce Ahng-hay-lace," the abbreviated name is variously mis
pronounced "Lawss Angless," "Lawss Anjeless," and even further abbre
viated to "Los" or "L.A."
Puzzling to the uninitiate is the fact that the city on the map and
the city as it is, often do not correspond. On maps an inland town,
some 15 miles from the coast, it dangles southward a "shoestring dis
trict" nine miles long and half a mile wide, to include within its cor
porate limits the two seaport towns of San Pedro and Wilmington,
which form Los Angeles Harbor. To the west and north the city
reaches out over quiet valleys where solitary ranch houses display street
numbers running up into five figures. It penetrates brush-covered can
yons inhabited chiefly by forest rangers and wild animals. On the other
hand, many a street lined solidly with homes and other buildings ex
tends far outside the city boundaries. Even more confusing are the
independent towns which Los Angeles completely or partially sur
rounds: Beverly Hills, San Fernando, Culver City, Universal City,
Santa Monica, Inglewood, and Burbank. One reason for this exten
sive urban expansion has been the widespread use of the automobile.
Many people in these scattered areas motor in to work in Downtown
Los Angeles. Others work in their own communities, but drive to
town for shopping and amusement.
Each outlying municipality or community usually has its own im
portant industrial resources: Culver City has motion pictures; Long
Beach has oil wells and seaside resort facilities; Pasadena and Beverly
Hills offer retreats to the financially secure; Inglewood has airplane
factories and a race track; Glendale and Burbank have airports and
various factories ; San Pedro and Wilmington are supported by shipping,
fisheries, and the Navy s Pacific Fleet; the San Fernando Valley com-
THE CONTEMPORARY SCEXE 7
munities depend mainly on farming. Not without reason, perhaps, has
Los Angeles been dubbed "nineteen suburbs in search of a city."
The Los Angeles of the future is likely to evolve along highways.
Already there is a vast network of superb roads. In other rapid transit
facilities, however, Los Angeles is outranked by many a smaller town.
Cumbersome, old-fashioned trolleys still rattle through the streets. The
interurban service is incredibly slow and antiquated. Busses and a few
lightweight streamlined trolleys have been introduced, but the inade
quacy of the city s transportation as a whole has hardly been mitigated
by these measures. Travel on public conveyances is often a distinct
inconvenience because of long waits and overcrowding. In some in
stances the city has left outlying districts devoid of any method of travel
except by automobile or on foot.
Though its tendency to spread and sprawl has been more or less
unrestrained, the city has strangely enough denied itself the right to
soar. Since 1906 a municipal ordinance has limited buildings to 13
stories and 150 feet in height. This restriction, sponsored by architects,
fire underwriters, and others, was adopted for several reasons. Since
Los Angeles had virtually unlimited space in which to expand, and
since the city was becoming known as a health and resort center famed
for fresh air and sunshine, it was felt that it would be a mistake to
erect tall buildings that would create traffic congestion and turn the
streets into dark, narrow canyons conditions which people from the
East were trying to escape. It was believed, further, that tall buildings
were not a paying investment. With a few exceptions, such as the
32-story City Hall, the restriction has been rigidly enforced; and as a
result, Los Angeles sky line presents a series of long, low lines instead
of the rearing, jagged contours of most large American cities. Another
effect of limiting the height of buildings has been to decentralize the
city. One of the distinctive aspects of Los Angeles is its number of
community shopping centers, each virtually self-sufficient. The stranger,
driving in what appears to be a residential section, may suddenly find
himself in a highly concentrated area of shops and offices of every
description. In these business districts, where buildings are frequently
of the most bizarre architectural design, practically every service is rep
resented. However, the tendency toward decentralization has not alle
viated congested conditions downtown, since downtown streets are nar
row, elevated railways are lacking, the single subway is short, and office
buildings, large department stores, and a number of theatres are con
centrated in a relatively small area.
Architecturally, Los Angeles has somewhat matured. Seldom per
petrated today are the monstrosities of a few years ago, the Moorish
minarets sprouting from a Swiss chalet, the Tudor mansion with chro
matic Byzantine arches. In many streets, these older homes survive,
8 LOS ANGELES
continuing the tradition of a florid era when the builder was the archi
tect, and his bad taste was exceeded only by the vigor of his unrestrained
imagination. Contrasts between the Victorian and the contemporary
structure are often ludicrous, as when a constructivist garage rubs roof
tops with a grotesque gingerbread castle. But in general the present-day
designs are simple, pleasing, and well-adapted to the climate. Much
of it is in harmony with the city s Latin heritage. Reminders of the
days of the dons are becoming more and more numerous: in the munic
ipal coat of arms, which embellishes such public works as the new
Figueroa Street tunnels; and in the bright tile roofs and shady patios
of private homes. Here and there are buildings that are portents of
the city-to-be: the dignified but striking edifice of the Public Library,
the towering City Hall, the functional modern residences.
A lavish variety of flowers and trees bedecks the city. Curious and
exotic species offer the nature lover a surprising new world of colors,
odors, and flavors. Three kinds of trees palm, eucalyptus, and pepper
against stucco walls and red tiles, are as characteristic of Los Angeles
as are the elms and maples above the white frame farmhouse of New
England.
The character of the city is also reflected in the facilities for open-
air living. Angelenos not only enjoy sports the year round, but also
patronize outdoor libraries "parasol stations" three of w r hich are
maintained by the Public Library in downtown plazas and parks. They
listen to "symphonies under the stars" in the Hollywood Bowl. They
patronize drive-in movie theatres and watch the show from their auto
mobiles. They park in front of restaurants shaped like zeppelins, ice
cream cones, or shoes, and dine within their own cars. Multitudes go
shopping in open-air markets, where displays of bright fruits, vegetables,
and flowers remind easterners of the lavish exhibits at a state fair.
Other institutions that have either originated or been perfected in
Los Angeles are cafeterias, supermarkets, and "motels" (auto camps).
Cafeterias, especially, are in full glory, one of which treats its pa
trons to pipe-organ concerts, singing waiters and waitresses, and free
fruit-ades.
Much of the foregoing has catalogued the more sensational mani
festations of the character of Los Angeles. However, the majority of
the people live as conventionally and tamely as citizens of other large
American cities, and many are inclined to frown on their less restrained
brethren. The average Angeleno, be he business man, professional man,
tradesman, or artisan, is generally so busy with humdrum affairs that
he has little time or inclination to indulge in the vagaries that delight
his more leisured neighbors.
The city s cultural life, also, provides a contrast to its circus-day
aspect. In Los Angeles are educational and scientific institutions of a
THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE 9
type characteristic of every modern American metropolis: public and
private libraries, museums, and art galleries; colleges, universities, and
technical schools, some of them with high reputations. The popular
concerts, the numerous book stores and art shops, the writers and artists
clubs, and the little theatres attest to the presence of a cultural aware
ness on the part of a considerable part of the population. Cultural
Los Angeles, however, is not so much the outgrowth of native move
ments and traditions as it is the product of a recent influx of talent
of all kinds, attracted chiefly by the motion pictures. The work pro
duced by the hundreds of writers, musicians, and other artists who have
come to Hollywood does not reflect the native scene. Los Angeles, as
a locale, has inspired few outstanding works of literature or art ; nor
has the city developed a creative school of thought or outside the
motion-picture industry had notable influence on culture in other parts
of the country. It is possible, however, that in time a distinctive native
philosophy and cultural cohesiveness may develop among the great
numbers of gifted persons gathered together in this area; and if such
a development occurs, Los Angeles may well become one of the world s
most influential centers of culture.
Natural Setting
IN VARIETY of scene, southern California is richer than many
vastly larger areas of the globe. It is a region where rugged
mountains, cleft by deep gorges, tower in peaks 10,000 feet above
sea level ; a region of forests and wide deserts, of rolling foothills, fertile
valleys, and seasonal rivers that sweep to the sea; a region with craggy
shores, strands, capes, bays, and verdant islands washed by the Pacific
Ocean. So diversified is the terrain that motion-picture studios film
stories laid in African deserts, Alpine peaks, the South Seas, and a
dozen other "foreign" places, without going more than 100 miles from
Los Angeles.
Los Angeles County, measuring approximately 75 miles from north
to south and 70 miles from east to west, covers 4,083 square miles,
about half of it mountainous. Roughly, the northern part of the county
is made up of desert and mountains, and the smaller southern part
lies on a broad plain that slopes gently from the mountains to the Pacific.
Most of the 451 square miles of the city of Los Angeles is spread over
the plain, the city s downtown district lying midway between the moun
tains and the sea.
Ranges north of the city separate the urban area from the Mojave
Desert. In the San Gabriel Mountains, rising from the coastal plain,
and less than 40 miles from the sea, are nine peaks more than 8,000 feet
in height. Loftiest of these are Mount San Antonio (Old Baldy)
10,080 feet, and Mount Baden-Powell, 9,389, whose crests are some
times snowcapped. To the north, nearer Los Angeles, the San Gabriel
Mountains rise more than 7,000 feet, and are gashed by numerous
canyons down which streams tumble seaward during the spring.
West and northwest of Los Angeles are two smaller ranges, the
Santa Monica and the Santa Susana Mountains. The Santa Susana,
the more northern of the two, reach a maximum elevation of 3,956
feet and with the San Gabriel Mountains, form the northern boundary
of the San Fernando Valley. In this wide, fertile valley, approximately
twenty-two miles long, are three towns, several smaller communities,
and a part of Los Angeles. The Santa Monica Mountains form the
southern boundary of San Fernando Valley, while still farther west,
their embayed southern slopes mark the north shore line of Santa
Monica Bay. Their highest point is Sandstone Peak, 3,059 feet high.
On the lower southern slopes of this range sprawl Hollywood and
10
X3&3&^^^^
Metropolitan Aspects
\
Section of Fine Arts, Treasury Department
DETAIL OF MURAL BY EDWARD BIBERMAN
IN FEDERAL BUILDING AND POST OFFICE
F. W . Carter
SEVENTH STREET
-3"% "ft
a
i
L. A. County Development Committee
AIRVIEW OF DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, LOOKING SOUTH
MAIN STREET
F. IV. Carter
IHHRHH
inilMIIII
iflHRHR
IK
I
M
m
Mtt
in it ii ii i
Iff I II II II 91
mi 11 ii ii ii i
11 11 ii
HUH]
II II II II II
. W. Carter
CITY HALL
I
I
I
I
. I
i
II II
II II II
II II II
II II II
Dick" Whining to*
LOS ANGKLKS STOCK EXCHANGE
-
^
LOTUS POOL IN ECHO PARK
F. W. Carter
Frank L. Rollins
DUCKPOND, WESTLAKE PARK
$ tm
Hurton (). Hurt
RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT
LAFAYETTE PARK AND THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
F. W. Carter
r 777 - r
Security First National Bank
FIRST SKETCH OF LOS ANGELES (1852), FROM FORT MOORE HILL
SIXTH AND SPRING STREETS (1904)
Security First National Bank
NATURAL SETTING II
Beverly Hills. Between the Santa Monica and Santa Susana Ranges
and the mightier San Gabriel are the Elysian, San Rafael, and Verdugo
Hills, averaging 1,000 feet in height.
The ranges so converge and interlock north of the city that there
is access to the northern part of the state only through well-defined
mountain passes. Among these are the Cahuenga Pass, Mint Canyon,
Newhall (the old Fremont Pass), and Tejon Pass. Nearer the coast
are Topanga and Triunfo Passes.
Southeast of Los Angeles, and a few miles from the ocean, are the
Dominguez Hills, only a few hundred feet high. Farther east of the
city are the Montebello, Puente, and San Jose Hills.
The Los Angeles Plain, broken here and there by hills and moun
tains, descends to the sea from an elevation of about 900 feet at the
base of the San Gabriel Mountains. On the plain are almost all of
the county s forty-four incorporated cities, the orange groves, truck
farms, and oil fields.
Two rivers, the San Gabriel and the Los Angeles, flow across the
plain to the sea. Dry virtually throughout the summer, these rivers
become turbulent in winter from heavy rains and melting snows. The
San Gabriel River, the more important, drains approximately 700 square
miles. It rises at the head of San Gabriel Canyon, receives the waters
from a dozen small tributaries, and flows into the sea at Alamitos Bay,
near the southwestern county line. The Los Angeles River has its
source in the mountains adjacent to the San Fernando Valley, flows
through San Fernando Valley, and is joined by numerous mountain
creeks before it empties into the sea at Long Beach.
There are relatively few natural lakes in the county. Among the
more accessible are Elizabeth, Crystal, Jackson, and Quail.
The county s coast line, nearly seventy-five miles long, is roughly
divided into two crescent-shaped bays: Santa Monica Bay, facing west,
and San Pedro Bay, facing south. At the northern end of Santa Monica
Bay, canyons gape seaward and bold cliffs are broken intermittently
by sandy beaches. From these headlands the coast line makes a wide
curve southeasterly along several beaches until broken by the San Pedro
Hills. These hills, also called the Palos Verdes, form one of the most
decorative promontories on the southern California coast. From Point
Fermin, where the crescent of San Pedro Bay begins, the shore line as
far as Long Beach is indented by the channels of Los Angeles Harbor.
At Long Beach it becomes once again a smooth strand.
Off the San Pedro Hills lies Santa Catalina, nearest of the Channel
Islands. These islands are the projecting tops of a submerged moun
tain range running parallel to the coast. The famed resort island of
Santa Catalina is dominated by Mount Orizaba and Black Jack Peak,
each rising more than 2,OOO feet. On the seaward side of the island
12 LOS ANGELES
are sheer cliffs; on the land side, the bay and town of Avalon. Thirty
miles beyond is the island of San Clemente, now a United States Navy
base and training ground. Most of the other islands are uninhabited ;
some, such as San Nicolas, are desolate; others are fertile and green.
Some have natural harbors and some unapproachable shores; others are
mere rocks rising from the sea, homes of gulls, pelicans, and cormorants.
Geology: Southern California geology is characterized by the ex
treme youthfulness of most of its exposed deposits. Strata laid down
in the two most recent geological periods, the Quaternary and the Ter
tiary, are overwhelmingly predominant. Earlier strata are exposed in
only a few places in the county, and no rocks definitely known to
belong to the earliest period, the Archean, have been found.
Layers of marine deposits alternating with terrestrial sediment prove
that the Los Angeles area has several times sunk beneath the ocean,
and in almost every locality the strata have been folded, twisted, and
broken by crustal movements. It is generally agreed that much of
southern California lay beneath a sea during ancient geological time,
and that thousands of feet of marine deposits accumulated on an ocean
floor. Millions of years later, during the Jurassic period, long after
some of the high mountains of the eastern states had been worn down
to a low, old-age stage, this area entered an active and formative geo
logical period. The great Sierra Nevada and lesser ranges arose, and
the sea retreated to a new shore line along the western base of the
Sierra.
Wind and water eroded the rock until much of California, includ
ing what is now the Los Angeles area, was a low plain. Geologists
depict the southern California of the early Tertiary period as a jungle-
covered lowland, bordered by a broad, shallow, island-spotted sea.
There is evidence of volcanic action during these times. Lava rocks
of this period are widely exposed in some sections of Los Angeles
County.
Then came resubmergence of parts of the Los Angeles Plain.
Marine life was deposited along with sands and muds, and when the
rocks thus formed were uplifted, oil from the organisms was impounded
at the apexes of folded strata. The rich petroleum deposits that con
stitute the county s chief natural resource are pumped or flow from
such folds in the Baldwin, Puente, and San Jose Hills, and elsewhere
in the county.
Southern California mountain ranges, worn down to relatively low
relief at the beginning of the present geological period, were later con
verted by a rising movement of the land into great sheer-sided, angular
masses of even greater bulk than they are today. Deeply depressed areas
between the ranges may have held remnants of inland seas. The Great
Ice Age followed, and some evidence of glaciation has been found as
NATURAL SETTING 13
far south as Mount San Gorgonio (Old Grayback). The glacier
nearest to Los Angeles today is the Palisades, approximately 250 miles
north, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Though scientists disagree as to whether the present post-glacial
period is one of increasing or diminishing crustal movement of the
earth, seismic activity continues. Several times a day the seismograph
at the California Institute of Technology records movement of the
earth s crust. Sometimes the movement is far out on the floor of the
Pacific; again it may be in Hawaii or Alaska; or, when sudden slippage
occurs along one of southern California s many faults (fractures in the
earth s crust), it is within the Los Angeles area.
These sudden displacements occur whenever the strain grows too
great along a fault line, and the intensity of an earthquake depends
upon the nature and extent of the movement. At least three of the
several major quakes that have occurred in California since 1857 were
caused by displacements along the San Andreas Fault, which runs the
length of the state and is nearest to Los Angeles at a point about fifty
miles east of the city. Movement along an ocean segment of the
Newport-Inglewood structural belt or fault, about three and one-half
miles offshore, southwest of Newport Beach, produced the Long Beach
earthquake in 1933. This is the only earthquake in the last eighty years
causing severe damage in Los Angeles.
Most geologists believe that the effective force of earthwaves result
ing from sudden movements along faults is dissipated at a distance of
from five to fifteen miles from the fault; hence it is probable that only
movements along the Inglewood Fault and associated minor faults can
seriously disturb the city of Los Angeles. Although other large faults
run through the area, no recent movements have been recorded upon
them, and geologists consider dangerous activity along them unlikely.
Fossils: Southern California s abundant plant and animal fossils,
which belong predominantly to the three most recent geological epochs
the Pleistocene, the Pliocene, and the Miocene furnish a picture of the
flora and fauna that flourished here in prehistoric times.
One of the world s most important collections of Pleistocene animal
remains has been taken from the asphalt pits at Rancho La Brea (see
Tour C), about six miles west of the center of Los Angeles, where
thousands of mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects were caught in the
sticky seepage. Bones of several thousand creatures, including those of
extinct animals such as the saber-toothed cat or tiger, the dire wolf, the
imperial elephant, and the American mastodon have been removed from
the pits. Altogether more than one hundred different kinds of animals
and plants are represented. Many of the bones have been assembled
and the skeletons are exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum (see
Tour D).
14 LOS ANGELES
The thick beds of Miocene and Pliocene fossiliferous deposits cov
ering parts of southern California contain exceedingly valuable oil
deposits. These were formed from marine life impounded in the rocks
at a time when the Los Angeles area lay beneath an ocean. The strata
are also remarkable for the abundance of fossil mollusks. Miocene shell
fish are plentiful in the Santa Monica Mountains, where also are found
the bones of extinct marine fish and mammals. Fossilized roots and
branches of Miocene trees have been unearthed in Topanga Canyon
and elsewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains, and are on display at
local institutions.
Climate: Los Angeles climate is Mediterranean. It has been
called "a cool climate with a warm sun." The temperature seldom rises
above 85 or falls below 40; the annual mean is 62.4. The weather
is temperate all year, with a relatively slight variation between summer
and winter, and few extremes of heat or cold. But it is never quite
the same any two years in succession; hence the city s reputation for
"unusual weather."
During the summer months, rainfall is exceedingly rare because of
the subtropical high pressure belt off the coast. The northwest migra
tion of the wind system greatly weakens the westerlies, so that the tem
perature in spring and summer seldom rises above 85 at noon, and
then without high humidity. There are generally hazy or cloudy sun
rises, with cool breezes drifting in from the ocean in the forenoon. Even
in July, August, and September, which are usually the warmest months,
the nights are occasionally so cool that wraps are necessary.
By November the first important rains have fallen; the mornings
are clear, the San Gabriel Mountains possibly snowcapped and outlined
against hazeless blue skies. During winter, as the city comes under the
influence of more southerly winds and warm ocean rains, the daytime
temperature even on the coldest days is rarely below 55, and usually
ranges around 65 at noon. The nights are chilly and the thermometer
may occasionally drop to the freezing point in nearby valleys.
With the coming of spring, the morning coast fogs return, breezes
blow in from the Pacific, and the maximum temperature hovers around
70 to 75. In May or June there may be a warm spell for a few
days, lifting the temperature to 85 or possibly 90.
Rainstorms usually occur only in the cooler months of the year.
Mild and warm, they rarely last more than two days or precipitate
more than two inches of rain. The average yearly rainfall is 15.23
inches; the average number of rainy days is thirty-seven. The winter
rains occasionally bring freakish thunderstorms. In the nearby moun
tains, beginning at elevations of 4,000 feet, three or more feet of snow
may fall during the winter.
In summer, ocean breezes keep the beach cities from 5 to 10
NATURAL SETTING 15
cooler than metropolitan Los Angeles, and correspondingly warmer in
winter. There is less variation between day and night temperatures
in the coast towns than in the city. The California current, flowing
offshore, exerts a cooling effect that tempers the climate of the entire
Los Angeles area.
No generalizations about weather give the story, for each year
there are many departures from the normal. The rainy season may
begin as early as September or as late as January; the winter may be
relatively cold or warm ; snow may fall on rare occasions w r ithin the
city limits; there may be an extended dry spell, or rainfall so heavy that
disastrous floods result. Meteorologists, long accustomed to questions
concerning Los Angeles weather, remark that unusual weather" is not
unusual for southern California.
Fauna: The widely divergent temperatures and altitudes in the
mountains, deserts, and valleys of the Los Angeles region enable it
to support exceptionally varied and numerous forms of animal life.
Small fauna is overwhelmingly predominant; nearly all the larger
animals here at the time of the early Spanish explorers have disappeared.
The California grizzly bear, foe of the early rancher and traveler, is
believed to be extinct; the bighorn sheep is gone except for a bare dozen
that range on the slopes of Mount Baldy; and there are only three or
four prong-horned antelopes in sparsely settled areas of the county.
The puma or mountain lion, is becoming rare. Together with the bob
cat, it is often the object of government biological surveys. The Cali
fornia mule deer, despite the slaughter of hundreds during each annual
hunting season, has been holding its own since the inception of the
State Game Conservation Program.
Among the most numerous of the small animals in the foothill and
valley regions of Los Angeles County are the coyote, the striped and
spotted skunks, the jack rabbit, brush rabbits, cottontails, and one variety
of hare. These animals often invade the residential sections of Alta-
dena, Monrovia, and other foothill cities. California weasels are plen
tiful, and raccoon are common throughout southern California in tim
bered creek bottoms. Both of these animals were once believed to be
a nuisance to chicken ranchers, but evidence now shows that they more
than compensate for their "depredations" by destroying mice. The gray
fox is abundant in the foothill areas, and the small, long-eared kit
fox is common in Antelope Valley. California badger are less numerous
that they were in the past, but the opossum, brought here from the
eastern states many years ago, is increasing.
Rodents, including several varieties of chipmunk and squirrel, are
plentiful. The desert slope of the San Gabriel Mountains and Ante
lope Valley harbor grasshopper mice, desert pack rats, kangaroo rats,
and parasitic mice. The shrew and mole are not common, but gophers
1 6 LOS ANGELES
are plentiful everywhere on the Pacific slope in the foothills, valleys,
and even on city lawns. The many varieties of southern California
bats include the very rare spotted, the pale lump-nosed grinnell, Cali
fornia mastiff, California leaf-nosed, Mexican free-tailed, and brown bat.
The only poisonous reptiles in the county are four varieties of
rattlesnake: the Pacific, largest and most common, found in foothill
and mountain regions; the Mojave, the white, and the sidewinder,
found in the northwestern part of the desert area. Other snakes com
mon in the mountains, valleys, and foothills near Los Angeles are the
small California boa, the coral king snake, red racer, gopher snake,
and two varieties of water snake. The only turtle found in nearby
streams is the Pacific mud turtle; the desert tortoise, capable of storing
water, is confined to the desert slope. Several of the many varieties of
lizards common to the arid and semiarid regions of the Southwest are
found in Los Angeles County. The western skink, Blainville horned
toad, brown-shouldered lizard, and whip-tailed lizard are found on
the Pacific slope. Lizards of the desert slope and Antelope Valley
include the desert horned toad, and the desert rough-scaled, desert whip-
tailed, leopard, and night lizards. The iguana and the abundant chuck-
walla, two of the largest North American lizards, have been seen in
that part of the Mojave Desert that lies within the county.
Beside the rattlesnake, three other poisonous creatures inhabit the
county: the black widow spider, the mildly poisonous scorpion, and the
relatively harmless tarantula. The black widow spider, distinguished
by the red, hourglass-shaped spot on its shiny black abdomen, is the
most dangerous of the three, but its bite is seldom fatal. In cities it
is found most frequently in garages, closets, and under rubbish. About
half a dozen kinds of scorpion have been found in the desert sections of
Los Angeles County. Their bite is painful, but rarely fatal. The
large California tarantula is the most common of several members of
the family. Although the tarantula possesses well-developed poison
glands, its bite is seldom, if ever, serious, probably no more so than that
of the trap-door spider, which can be found in almost any vacant lot.
Southern California is the home of some 220 species of birds, and
attracts about the same number of bird visitors and migrants. Those
of the perching order are most numerous, and include the California
jay, Brewer s blackbird, the western mockingbird, that disturbs sleep
by singing at night (see Tour 3), the western bluebird, the western
lark sparrow, the San Diego red-winged blackbird, the western meadow-
lark, the California horned lark, the western raven, the western crow,
Cassin s purple finch, the house finch, the willow goldfinch, the green-
backed goldfinch, the San Diego towhee, the California shrike, Hutton s
vireo, the Pacific yellowthroat, the cactus wren, the dotted canon wren,
the San Diego wren, the sierra creeper, the slender-billed nuthatch, the
NATURAL SETTING I 7
P\ L r my nuthatch, the plain titmouse, the mountain chickadee, the wren
tit, the California bush tit, and the western gnatcatcher.
Among the visiting perching birds are the Arkansas kingbird, the
ash-throated flycatcher, the Say s phoebe, olive-sided flycatcher, the
western peewee, the western flycatcher, the yellow-headed blackbird,
the Arizona hooded oriole, the Bullock s oriole, the western savanna
sparrow, the Gambel s sparrow, the black-chinned sparrow, the fox
sparrow, the black-headed grosbeak, the cliff swallow, the cedar wax-
wing, the Cassin s vireo, the least vireo, the black-throated gray
warbler, the ruby-crowned kinglet, the russet-backed thrush, and
the dwarf hermit thrush. The road runner, a cuckoo whose leg mus
cles have greatly developed though it still retains the power of flight, is
fairly common on the cactus-covered washes and mesas. It belongs to
the same order as the California cuckoo and kingfisher, found sparingly
in the Los Angeles area. The county has eight resident and four
visitant woodpeckers, also the sapsucker and flicker. The visitant Texas
and Pacific nighthawks and the resident dusky whippoorwill belong to
the same order as the numerous swifts and hummingbirds seen here at
various times of the year. The Anna hummingbird, largest of the
species, sings, which puts him in a class by himself, so far as humming
birds are concerned. It is greenish in color and remains here during
the winter; the black-chinned and Costa hummingbirds migrate to lower
regions during cold weather; the fairly common calliope is a summer
visitor to the mountains; the rufous, distinguished by its reddish hue,
migrates through Los Angeles County twice a year, and there are also
the Island and Allen hummingbirds.
Among the most interesting of the resident birds of prey are the
rarely seen California vulture or condor, Cooper s hawk, western red-
tail, pigeon hawk, desert sparrow hawk, prairie falcon, American barn
owl, spotted owl, and California screech owl. Visiting birds of prey
include the Swainson hawk, western sharp-shinned hawk, marsh hawk,
and short-eared owl. The bald eagle is rare on the mainland, but a
common resident of the Santa Barbara Islands. The golden eagle is
common in mountainous regions. The California condor is still resi
dent in small numbers in mountainous sections of Santa Barbara and
Ventura counties, and has also been seen occasionally in the Santa
Monica and Tehachapi Mountains, as well as in Mount Pinos, Kern
County. It is protected by law to prevent extinction; it is estimated
there are approximately fifty of the birds in California.
Gulls, including the glaucous-winged, western, herring, California,
and ring-billed varieties, are common shore birds. Most of them
migrate inland, sometimes hundreds of miles, during the rainy season.
The pied-billed grebe and black-nosed stilt are fairly common in the
few tule-margined ponds between Los Angeles and the seacoast, and the
l8 LOS ANGELES
western grebe visits the salt lagoons along the coast in winter. Loons
are winter visitors to large reservoirs and to the shore. The Cali
fornia brown pelican is a resident along the beaches, while the white
pelican is a visitant to lakes, sloughs, and marshlands from fall to spring.
Until most of Los Angeles County s marshland was filled in a
few years ago, ducks were fairly plentiful during the winter on the
marshes between Los Angeles and the beach cities. Mallards and ruddy
ducks are still seen on reservoirs and privately owned artificial lakes;
and the green-winged teal is a frequent winter visitor.
Quail and doves are the most numerous game birds, and are increas
ing under the State Game Conservation Program. Attempts to stock
the county with pheasants have been unsuccessful.
Seals, whales, porpoises, and dolphins are the marine mammals of
southern California waters. Of the seals, the sea lion is the most numer
ous and is present at all seasons in the Catalina Channel. Before the
days of the Russian seal hunters the California sea elephant was com
mon along the southern California coast, but continual slaughter has
thinned the herds until only a few of them remain.
The once-plentiful whales have been almost totally exterminated.
In the early days of California whaling the finback, sulphur-bottom,
and California gray whales, all fast, hard-fighting animals, destroyed
so much of the whalers gear that they were seldom molested, but after
the invention of the explosive harpoon their numbers dwindled rapidly.
The humpback, low in oil content and therefore unprofitable, is the
most numerous of the remaining whales, though the California gray and
the sulphur-bottom, largest of living animals, are sometimes seen.
In the teeming waters of the southern California coast there are
more than 120 varieties of commercial fish and game. Several varieties
of mollusks, including mussels, clams, squid and octopi are found on
either the rocky or sandy beaches; other varieties including abalone and
rock mussels are common on rocky sections of the coast. Other forms
of marine fauna found on such rocky beaches as Palbs Verdes and
Laguna include sea anemones, starfish, sponges, hydroids, and various
crustaceans.
Grunion, small fish of the smelt family, sweep up onto the beach
to spawn during high tides on moonlit nights during the spring and
summer months. Crowds of people gather on the beach, particularly
along the stretch between Long Beach and Huntington Beach where
the grunion runs are most frequent and of greatest magnitude, to gather
quantities of the small silvery fish by the light of the moon, or of
bonfires, or of flashlights.
The grunion appear the second, third, and fourth nights after the
full of the moon, very shortly after the tide s peak. It takes the
grunion only about thirty seconds to dig a hole in the sand with her
NATURAL SETTING IQ
tail and extrude her eggs. One wave tosses her ashore and the next
returns her to the sea. When the moon is well up a run may last for
an hour or more, and where there is a slight run-off or curve in the
beach, which produces a swirl in the wash of the waves, the sand be
comes alive with their glittering bodies.
Flora: The history of southern California floriculture and agri
culture has been linked with an unending quest for more water from
the time the Franciscan padres dug irrigation ditches from the San
Gabriel River to their newly planted fields until the building of the
Colorado River Aqueduct. Potentially fruitful because of its unusually
wide variety of soils, its mild, equable climate, and its varied terrain,
southern California has needed only water to enable it to support a
diversified and an abundant plant life. Where water is plentiful,
southern California is a region of orange groves, palm trees, and flower
gardens; where water is lacking, it is a harsh and comparatively sterile
land of chamise, cacti, and scrub oak.
Of the three main types of native vegetation found in Los Angeles
County hard-leaved shrubs and dwarf trees on the foothills, coniferous
forests on the ranges, and desert plant life in Antelope Valley and the
Mojave Desert the chaparral is by far the most characteristic. Chap
arral, from the Spanish chaparro (scrub oak), was the name given by
the Spanish settlers to the expanse of brush covering a large section of
the upper foothill and mountainous region. This tangle of shrubs and
dwarf trees appears to be worthless, as compared with the tall conifers
and spreading deciduous trees of moister climates, yet it is so valuable
as watershed covering that the expanse where it grows has been made
a part of the Angeles National Forest.
In the canyons of the San Gabriel Mountains, above the chaparral
belt and often blending with it, lie the coniferous forests. At 2,500
feet, and even below this level, are Douglas firs. Growing at higher
elevations, from 2,500 to 6,000 feet, are white firs; beautiful Coulter
pines; and the handsome Digger pines with long, deep, blue-needled
branches. The huge cones of the Digger pines provide "pinon" nuts.
Various other varieties of pines are seen from elevations of 5,000 feet
to the summits of the San Gabriel Mountains the Murray, the yellow,
and the Jeffrey pines predominating and stands of incense-cedar, tall
pyramidal trees with deep green and compact foliage. The great sugar
pine grows only on the highest mountains of the county.
Along the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, in Antelope Valley,
and in the Mojave Desert, characteristic desert vegetation prevails. The
brush-covered slopes of the canyons descending into the desert are
spotted with juniper, cacti, and yucca, with its dazzling masses of white
blossoms, while along the dry water courses and washes appear various
shrubs. Farther north and east the area is grayish-green with creosote-
2O LOS ANGELES
bush, locoweed, saltbush, and mesquite, broken occasionally by the sil
houette of a smoke tree (also called chittamwood). Near Palmdale is
one of the extensive growths of Joshua trees, stretching grotesquely
twisted arms upward. Until recently the wood of the Joshua tree was
used for "breakaway" furniture in motion pictures and for surgical
splints, but the plant is now protected by law.
Although the cactus is popularly associated with the desert, many
varieties of it are found in the foothills, along the seacoast, in parts
of the Los Angeles Basin, and even in the high mountains, where they
are covered with snow during the winter months. Yellow- or green-
flowered chollas (Opuntia) are plentiful on the flats and in washes
and canyons. Common species of the prickly pear (Opuntia) grow in
the San Fernando Valley and on the San Pedro Hills, while Mojave
prickly pear appears in the canyons on the desert side of the San
Gabriels. In some rocky areas of the Mojave Desert are barrel cactus
(the desert s water reservoirs), hedgehog cactus, and the purple-flowered
fishhook cactus.
Best known of the wild flowers is the California poppy, official state
flower, called by the Spaniards Dormidera (drowsy one) whose golden-
hued petals unfold to the sunshine during the day and close at night
as though in sleep. During the spring, near Fairmont and Del Sur
in the Antelope Valley, the countryside is bright with the yellow and
gold of the poppies, interspersed with the purples, pinks, and violets
of thistle sage and lupine.
Opening late in the afternoon among the sand dunes of the desert
are the large white flowers of evening primroses. They bloom but
once. The day-old flowers turn pink, and the withered plants become
tumbleweeds, or are buried by drifting sands. Covering acres of sandy
or gravelly flats, blossoming from February to May, are the long pros
trate stems of purple-flowered sand verbena.
From early March until late June, the curious leather-like mahog
any-red flowers of the western peony and the great clusters of white
or pink blossoms of a shrubby kind of poppy appear along the banks
of mountain streams and among the rocky hills. Two vine-like plants
growing among the low shrubs in this area are the scarlet-flowered
climbing Pentstemon, and the cucumber-plant (sometimes called man-
root because its root is frequently as large as a man s body), which bears
peculiar pulpy fruit covered with spines.
Fields along coastal highways are brilliant during April and May
with yellow-flowered Coreopsis and the purple-flowered dwarf lupine
softens the usually somber-colored cliffs facing the sea. Deep green mats
of bright yellow- and purple-flowered Mesembryanthemum cover beach
dunes and sandy slopes.
Among the plants introduced into the county, the commonest are
NATURAL SETTING 21
the yellow-flowered wild mustard and the white-flowered wild radish,
both brought in by the mission padres. Two other widely distributed
plants are the native yellow-flowered California buttercups, and blue-
flowered Phacelias (baby-blue-eyes), which blossom from February until
late July.
The flowers that brighten the gardens, parkways, and driveways are
too numerous to list. A few of those most commonly planted are
geraniums, cosmos, sweet peas, asters and marigolds, petunias, zinnias,
dahlias, daisies, pansies, violets, roses, hydrangea and chrysanthemums,
snapdragons, gladioli, stocks, nasturtiums, hollyhocks, cyclamen, camel
lias and lantanas.
Southern California s hospitality to immigrant herbs, trees, and
shrubs is great, and Los Angeles floral display is drawn from the entire
world. The early Spaniards brought many seeds from their native land,
and the later Mexicans imported numerous forms. Many pioneers
became agriculturists and horticulturists, and sent back home for seeds
and plants.
In late fall the spectacular Poinsettia flares with red. A native of
Mexico, where it is called Flor de Noche Buena (flower of the good
night Christmas Eve), it was introduced here about 1830 and named
in honor of Joel R. Poinsett, one of the earliest American diplomatic
representatives to that country. From Mexico have also come the Copa
de Oro (cup of gold), with yellow funnel-shaped flowers nearly a foot
long; the flaming scarlet-petaled sticky mallow or monactllo (altar
box) ; and numerous forms of the showy flowered Hibiscus.
Many of the beautiful plants in parks and gardens of southern Cali
fornia have come from China, Japan, and other Oriental countries.
Cotoneasters, firethorns, bamboos, and the Cherokee rose came from
China; the Japanese rose or globe-flower, the gold-dust plant, and the
Kud-zu vine came from Japan ; and from Formosa came the large-
leaved ricepaper-plant.
Perhaps the most spectacular of the introduced vines is the wisteria
of the Orient, whose purple and white blossoms appear in spring and
summer. At Sierra Madre a wistaria vine covers more than an acre
of ground and during its flowering season in March it shelters an
annual fete.
Some eucalypti, the first seeds of which were brought to the West
Coast from Australia about 1850, vie in height with the native Sequoias.
The blue-gum is the largest, most useful, and the one most widely
planted in the county. During blossom-time, the abundance of white
flowers in its swaying crown makes it seem dusted with drifted snow.
In contrast to the tall blue-gum is a species of dwarf eucalyptus. Along
North Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills, is a fine display of these
dwarf trees. In August and September they riot with color; great clus-
22 LOS ANGELES
ters of brilliant scarlet, pink, and orange flowers appear against the
large, dark, glossy leaves. Belonging in the same botanical family, are
the myrtle and its cousins, the Eugenias, beautiful ornamental trees and
shrubs, and the odd Callistemons and Melaleucas, both called "bottle
brush" and bearing very showy flowers.
More than a score of varieties of the acacia have come from Aus
tralia. From early January until late summer these trees are enveloped
with great sprays of yellow flowers, some also with beautiful fernlike,
silvery blue-green foliage. Also from Australia comes the silk-oak
(Grevillea), a tall, slender tree with fernlike leaves, covered in summer
with comblike golden-yellow flowers. Another native of Australia is
the flametree. In early spring it presents a startling sight with its large,
shining, maple-like leaves, and masses of small cup-shaped flowers of
rich red on scarlet stems.
Blending into this subtropical growth is the pepper tree from the
Andean valleys of Peru ; the first seeds were brought to North America
by sailors more than 100 years ago. This tree, beautiful with drooping
branches and red berries that remain throughout the winter, has almost
become a symbol of California. Other imported plants are the jasmine
from Chile; the gorgeous bird-of-paradise flower and the colletia, from
Argentina; and two plants from Brazil, the red- or magenta-colored
bougainvillea, and the jacaranda tree bearing a mass of light violet-blue
tubular flowers during June and July.
From the Indian slopes of the Himalayas has come the deodar, a
magnificent coniferous tree of pyramidal form, silvery blue-green foliage,
and great sweeping branches. Two others of the same genus, the Atlas
and the Cedar of Lebanon, are equally handsome ornamental trees, and
have been planted in lawns and avenues in the Los Angeles district.
More striking in appearance, however, are three curious imported coni
fers (Araucarias) : the monkey-puzzle tree from Chile; the bunya-
bunya from Australia; and the Norfolk Island Pine, a tree that was
imported from a small island in the South Pacific where it was dis
covered by the early English navigator, Captain James Cook.
Besides these exotic woody forms widely represented in the county,
there are, conspicuously planted, numerous kinds of palms. The tall,
graceful Washingtonia is a fan palm indigenous to the canyons along
the southern fringe of the Colorado Desert. Some streets in the older
residential sections of Los Angeles are lined with it. Rivaling the
Washingtonia in popularity are two feathery-leaved palms the Canary
Island, which grows to a tremendous size, and the wine or honey palm
of Chile. A noteworthy growth of palms is in Pershing Square in
downtown Los Angeles, but the Huntington Gardens in San Marino
contain the largest collection of palms in southern California. Hunting-
ton Gardens also has many varieties of cacti and succulents.
NATURAL SETTING 23
Oranges were first brought to California by the missionaries in 1769.
It is believed that the San Gabriel Mission developed the first large
California orange orchard, an area of six acres in which about 400
seedling trees were planted about 1805. Today, flanking the foot
hills and filling the valleys, stretch evenly planted rows of orange,
lemon, and grapefruit trees. During the blossoming season, from March
until early May, they bear waxy white, pungent flowers. In April,
the deciduous trees of the county are in bloom pink and white apple
blossoms, white apricot blossoms, pink peach blossoms, and the white
flowers of the pear trees. Blending with these are the white flowers
of walnut trees, white and pink flowers of almond trees, and the pale
yellow or green blossoms of the avocado.
CCSCCSC<KC^^
Pueblo to Metropolis
THE history of the Los Angeles area abounds with the gargan
tuan, the fantastic. Settled more than sixteen miles inland
from a shallow, unprotected bay, it has made itself into one of
the great port cities of the world; lying far off the normal axes of
transportation and isolated by high mountains, it has become one of
the great railroad centers of the country; lacking a water supply ade
quate for a large city, it has brought in a supply from rivers and moun
tain streams hundreds of miles away. In little more than half a century
lots listed at a tax sale at a price of 63 cents apiece have increased in
value to the point where they are worth more than that price to the
square inch. It is not surprising that a city of such incredible achieve
ments should become the home of fantasy; the film industry could not
have found a more stimulating environment.
When Los Angeles became an incorporated city under American
rule in 1850, there was little evidence remaining even at that time to
show that North Broadway, near the Los Angeles River viaduct, once
had been the center of an Indian village, and that this entire area had
at one time been the exclusive province of the Gabrielino Indians.
And yet it was that primitive village which became the nucleus for
twentieth-century Los Angeles.
The predominating linguistic stock was Shoshonean, the great Uto-
Aztecan family which spread across North America from what is now
Idaho southward to Central America. No less than twenty-eight
Indian villages existed in what now constitutes Los Angeles County.
One of these, Yang-na, was situated near the heart of modern Los
Angeles.
These Indians, although primitive, were much more peaceful than
many North American tribes. They seldom warred with other groups.
Robbery was unknown and murder was punishable by death, as was
incest. From chief and medicine man to squaw and child they lived
according to strict ritual and taboos. They believed in only one deity,
called Qua-o-ar, whose name never passed their lips except during
important ceremonies, and then only in a whisper. The men seldom
wore clothing, and women usually had only a deerskin about the waist.
Along the coast women clad themselves in the fur of the sea otter.
The homes, of woven tule mats, resembled gigantic beehives. Agri
culture and domestication of animals were unknown to these aborigines ;
24
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 25
they lived on what was at hand edible roots, acorns, wild sage, and
berries. Snakes, rodents, and grasshoppers supplemented the supply of
such wild game as fell to their crude weapons. They knew little of
basket weaving and nothing of pottery making. Cooking utensils and
ceremonial vessels were made by the simple process of rubbing out a
hollow place in a slab, or block of soapstone. Bows were unknown.
Stone-tipped sticks and clubs were their only weapons. It is not
recorded that these primitive people possessed boats of any character.
SPAIN SENDS THE MISSION FATHERS
Meanwhile, as the fifteenth century ended, adventurers from Spain
and Portugal made their way to the New World. Cortez conquered
Mexico in 1519. Twenty-three years later, in 1542, the age-long
isolation of Yang-na and its fellow villages ended. In that year Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator in Spanish service, cruised
northward along the Pacific and discovered what is now San Pedro
Bay, naming it Bahia de los Fumos (bay of the smokes) because of
the many Indian campfires he saw along its shore. Sixty years passed
before another ship, captained by Sebastian Vizcaino, entered the bay
in 1602. During the remainder of the seventeenth century, occasional
heavily laden Spanish galleons, returning to Mexico from the Philip
pines, touched the shores of California to repair their leaking ships and
rest their thirsty, half-famished, scurvy-stricken crews. Tales of these
great canoes and their pale-face sailors circulated among the natives for
decades before white civilization was introduced.
In most sections of America, European colonists launched their
settlements despite the Indians. In California, on the contrary, it was
the presence of Indians that attracted pioneers and led to colonization
and development of the region. Spain long had carried on missionary
work among tribes in Mexico proper; as the eighteenth century drew
to a close, the Spanish determined to bring Christianity to the natives
along the Pacific slope. Conquest of California was to be achieved
"not by force of arms, but rather by the gentle means of persuasion
and evangical preaching."
But if the padres thought only in terms of spiritual conversion of
the natives, government officials were prompted by more worldly con
sideration to promote colonization of the California slope. Spain spurred
on the effort because other nations were casting covetous eyes on the
section. Sir Francis Drake had visited its shores and had claimed it
for Queen Elizabeth. Imperial Russia was reaching out across the
Bering Sea to the American mainland. And France, with her new r ly
acquired American empire between the Mississippi and the Rocky
26 LOS ANGELES
Mountains, was already contemplating a move to extend her domain
to the Pacific.
Frail, crippled, fifty-five-year-old Franciscan Father Junipero Serra
and bluff, sturdy Captain Caspar de Portola were chosen to lead the
expedition into hitherto unexplored Upper California and to select
sites for missions. Father Juan Crespi, diarist of the expedition, was to
give posterity its first description of the now famous route, El Camino
Real (the King s Highway), which extends between San Diego and
San Francisco. The expedition divided its forces, one group proceed
ing overland and the other by sea. After suffering great hardships,
both parties arrived at San Diego Bay in 1769, and a few days later,
on July 1 6, Father Serra founded the Mission San Diego de Alcala,
first link in the chain of twenty-one Franciscan missions in California.
Without waiting to witness the founding, Captain Portola and
Father Crespi, with a force of sixty-seven men, had begun the long
overland trek northward to Monterey, breaking the trail for El Camino
Real. After more than a fortnight of arduous travel, they made camp
near the southern declivity of what now is Elysian Park, not far north
of what was to become the very hub of Los Angeles. Crespi s entry
in his diary for this day on which white men first saw the site of
Los Angeles read :
After traveling about a league and a half through a pass between low
hills we entered a very spacious valley, well grown with cottonwoods and
alders, among which ran a beautiful river from north-northwest, and then,
doubling the point of a steep hill (now Elysian Park), it went on afterward
to the south. . . . This plain where the river runs is very extensive. It has
good land for planting all kinds of grain and seeds, and is the most suitable
site of all we have seen for a mission, for it has all the requisites for a large
settlement. As soon as we arrived, about eight heathen from a good village
came to visit us; they live in this delightful place among the trees on the
river. They presented us with some baskets of pinole made from seeds of
sage and other grasses. Their chief brought some strings of beads made
of shells, and they threw us three handfuls of them. Some of the old men
were smoking pipes well made of baked clay, and they puffed at us three
mouthfuls of smoke. We gave them a little tobacco and some glass beads
and they went away pleased.
Crespi s diary for the next day reported: "After crossing the river,
we entered a large vineyard of wild grapes and an infinity of rosebushes
in full bloom. All the soil is black and loamy and is capable of pro
ducing every kind of grain and fruit which may be planted." That day
he also reported that members of the expedition "saw some large
marshes of a certain substance like pitch ; they were boiling and bub
bling, and the pitch came out mixed with an abundance of water."
Thus were discovered the La Brea tar pits (bordering on present-day
Wilshire Boulevard) ; and thus was recorded the first indication of
petroleum in western America.
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 27
Two years later, Father Serra s associates founded the Mission
San Gabriel Arcangel near the recommended site. It was yet another
decade before some two score settlers, at the command of Governor
Felipe de Neve, founded the town of Los Angeles at Crespi s "delight
ful place among the trees on the river."
"This place," wrote Father Serra proudly to the Mexican viceroy
in describing the site of San Gabriel Mission, "is beyond dispute the
most excellent discovered. Without doubt, this one alone, if well cul
tivated, would be sufficient to maintain itself and all the rest of the
missions."
San Gabriel, founded September 8, 1771, more than fulfilled Serra s
high expectations. The natives were converted easily to the new faith
under the benignant but rigorous mission system. The Indians were
trained in agriculture, stock raising, gilding, brickmaking, and other
trades. They were clothed, housed, and fed at the mission they
erected under the padres tutelage. Their children were taught to
speak Spanish. As early mission records eloquently attest, the natives
quickly learned tasks assigned to them. They labored long and dili
gently. A few decades later, hundreds of natives were tending thou
sands of head of cattle, on a million and a half acres of land surround
ing San Gabriel Arcangel, from San Bernardino Mountains to the
Pacific Ocean.
FOUNDING OF LOS ANGELES
A cornerstone in Spanish colonial policy was the principle that
active colonization must begin once the spiritual mission center and the
military presidios were established. The new governor of California,
Felipe de Neve, acted in conformity with this policy when he recom
mended to the viceroy of Mexico that a pueblo be established at the
place which Father Crespi in 1769 had suggested as an ideal spot for
a mission. Thus was conceived the settlement that was to become Los
Angeles. The town was ordained by royal decree, and Governor de
Neve worked out every detail well in advance of actual settlement.
Settlers were to be recruited and conducted to the site by government
agents. Each was to be told where to live, what to build, what crops
to grow, and how much of his time must be given to community
undertakings.
De Neve staked out four square leagues a small plaza surrounded
by, seven-acre fields for cultivation; pastures and royal lands for leasing
to citizens. To plan a town was one thing ; to get settlers for it was
another, as the governor soon learned. Despite inducements of land,
money, livestock, and implements, he was unable to obtain settlers from
Lower California, and it was months before a group was recruited in
Mexico, chiefly Sonora. On August 18, 1781, they reached San Gabriel
28 LOS ANGELES
Mission, a small and sorry-looking group of eleven men, eleven women,
and twenty-two children. Only two of the adults were of Spanish
origin, the remainder including one mestizo (half-breed), eight mulat-
toes, nine Indians, and two Negroes. Despite misgivings of the mission
fathers over the venture, De Neve was determined to push his scheme
to realization.
Early in the morning of September 4, 1781, the expedition left
the mission for the official founding of Los Angeles. Governor de
Neve himself led the procession, followed by soldiers, the forty-four
settlers, mission priests and some of their Indian acolytes. The Yang-na
Indians gathered en masse to witness the strange spectacle as the pro
cession marched slowly around the spot selected for the pueblo, and
the padres invoked a blessing upon the new community. Governor de
Neve made a formal speech, followed by prayers and benedictions from
the clergy. Thus came into being El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la
Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (Sp., the town of Our Lady the
Queen of the Angels de Porciuncula), one of the few cities on earth
which has been deliberately planned in advance and ceremoniously
inaugurated.
Governor Pedro Fages, successor to De Neve, inaugurated the policy
of giving huge grants of land to his old friends and comrades-in-arms.
One of the first of these grants, a rancho of approximately forty-three
thousand acres, went to Juan Jose Dominguez in 1785, and embraced
the territory now included in Wilmington, Torrance, Redondo Beach,
and several smaller communities. It is the only one of the many Spanish
grants of which a considerable part still remains in the possession of
heirs of the original grantees.
The Spanish, and later the Mexican, governors were lavish in their
distribution of vast tracts, each of tens of thousands of acres. Except
for the mission tract and that property directly assigned to the pueblo,
nearly the whole of what now constitutes the coastal area of Los
Angeles County passed into the hands of a score or more Spanish and
Mexican hidalgos. When the eighteenth century ended, the region
was already divided into mission, pueblo, and rancho domain, and for
both the first and last of these the outlook was promising. Huge
expanses covered with ever-increasing herds of cattle, fields of grain,
vineyards, and orchards, all added to the prosperity and prestige of their
owners.
But the pueblo homes remained small, mud-colored, square-walled,
flat-roofed, one-story structures with rawhide doors and glassless win
dows. Lawns, trees, and sidewalks were nonexistent, and the narrow
streets were seas of mud in winter and clouds of dust in summer.
The civic pride and courage of Corporal Vincent Felix, commander of
the tiny garrison, held this uncomfortable community together. He not
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 2Q
only took his military duties seriously but, unofficially, assumed every
administrative, legislative, and judicial task. Respected, feared, and
loved, the little corporal remained the real power in the pueblo long
after the election of the first of the alcaldes.
By 1790 Los Angeles numbered 28 householders and a population
of 139. By 1800, the population was 315, and there were 30 adobe
houses for the 70 families, as well as a town hall, guardhouse, arrm^
barracks, and granaries.
In this remote outpost, social gradations were unknown. No school
existed to train the young in deportment and letters. Mail was carried
to and from Mexico once a month a distance of 3,000 miles over
the Camino Real. Few took advantage of these postal facilities, since
the ability to read and write was rare among the first settlers. There
was little trade or. commerce of any kind. Such as there was remained
largely in the hands of the padres and was carried on through the port
of San Pedro.
There were certain compensations, however, for the primitive life
of that period. No one paid taxes or rent. Each man lived in his
own house and cultivated his own land. As the nineteenth century
descended upon Los Angeles, its citizens were completely oblivious to
that trio of modern civilization : the real-estate agent, the tax gatherer,
and the instalment collector.
Cut off from the rest of civilization, these people neither knew nor
cared for the issues and problems of the world at large. Most were
unaware even of the fact that a young and lusty republic had been born
on the other side of the continent a new nation to which their fortunes
soon would be irrevocably tied. Nor did they realize that a short,
bow-legged Corsican was already at work yanking out the props from
under the three-century-old world power of Spain ; that the European
turmoil would soon wipe out Spain s American empire ; that in its
wake would follow half a century of strife, culminating in destruction
of Spanish control, and disintegration of Spanish missions and Spanish
customs in California.
It was a principle of the early colonial powers that those regions
they obtained by discovery or conquest were theirs alone to exploit.
The produce of their colonies must be sold to their merchants alone,
and transported in their ships. Likewise the people of the colonies
were permitted to buy only goods produced in the home country or
transported on its ships. Such was the relationship of England to its
American colonies. Such, too, was the relationship of Spain to Cali
fornia. To Mexico and to Spain went the rapidly accumulating stores
of hides and tallow from the California ranches; from them came the
necessities and occasional luxuries of the Californians.
Yankee traders knew nothing of this forbidden market in California
30 LOS ANGELES
until Captain William Shaler, of Boston, wrote enthusiastically about
it in 1808. Returning from the Orient in 1805, he spent several months
on the California coast trading with Indians and whites, in defiance
of Spanish laws. He saw huge vats of tallow and untold thousands of
hides, obtainable for next to nothing, for which New England shoe-
and-harness makers would pay well. Even more important in the eyes
of this shrewd Yankee were the vast quantities of valuable sea otter
pelts. Realizing that the laws of Spain did not count heavily so long
as local authorities could not enforce them, Shaler, when he reached
home, spoke out freely in the Boston press:
"The conquest of this country would be absolutely nothing; it
would fall without an effort to the most inconsiderable force. The
Spaniards have few ships or seamen in this part of the world ... it
would be as easy to keep California in spite of the Spaniards, as it
would be to wrest it from them in the first instance."
Inspired by Shaler s report, more and more New England sea
captains put in at California ports, commencing an American economic
penetration on which mission fathers and hidalgos alike looked askance,
though some welcomed and abetted it. As for the Yankees, they
found the trade extremely profitable. Robert Glass Cleland, in his
History of California, tells how one trader obtained 300 sea otter skins
for 2 yards of cotton cloth apiece. Another obtained $8,000 worth of
furs for a rusty iron chisel, and a Captain Strugis purchased 560 skins,
worth $40 apiece, with goods that cost $1.50 in Boston.
By 1820 the sea otters had been almost exterminated, and the trade
in them was replaced by commerce in hides and tallow, also valuable
to the Yankee traders who had brought an end to California s isola
tion. Through the hides Los Angeles helped give New England a
monopoly of the early boot-and-shoe industry. Thus, too, New England
found a virgin market for her manufactured products, developed a
growing interest in southern California, and paved the way for the rise
of Yankee dons to power and prominence.
Companion to the highly successful Mission San Gabriel was Mis
sion San Fernando, founded twenty-two miles northwest of Los An
geles on September 8, 1797. For years the new mission played an im
portant part in the life of the Los Angeles area, supplying vast quantities
of foodstuffs to the pueblo and also to the presidio of Santa Barbara.
By 1819 it had a neophyte population of 1,080; its cattle numbered
21,745. Olives and dates were cultivated extensively; wheat, barley,
and corn were raised in abundance ; and the products of the mission s
vineyards were second in fame only to those of San Gabriel. Wool
from more than 7,000 sheep was worked on looms in the great mission
quadrangle and woven into blankets and cloth. Indian artisans tanned
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 31
hides and made shoes, saddles, and fashionable equestrian trappings of
the day.
Lean days began with the revolution in Mexico, which began in
1810 and continued for more than a decade. California revenues de
clined almost immediately. Spain s yearly contributions of $100,000
or more for soldiers, civil government, and missions ceased after 1811.
Spanish trading vessels avoided the coast for fear of capture by South
American rebel privateers. The governor forced the missions to supply
his soldiers and staff with food, wine, clothing, and other goods, despite
the padres strenuous objections. Paid with drafts drawn on Spain
"to be presented whenever this war with the rebels is over" the mis
sions were eventually left holding more than $400,000 in worthless
paper.
Meanwhile the pueblo, the City of the Queen of the Angels, spread
ing amoeba-like in all directions, without plan or purpose, poured out
beyond the original protective walls. The population grew to 650 in
1820. Food was plentiful, especially meat. The Indians provided a
cheap and plentiful supply of labor. By 1817, there were more than
a hundred acres of vineyards under cultivation near the pueblo, and
the making of wine and brandy attained considerable proportions.
MEXICAN RULE
The Mexican War of Independence, except for its economic con
sequences, scarcely touched the life of the Californians. They lived in
a world apart. And when at last, in March, 1822, news reached Los
Angeles that Spain had relinquished her western possessions, the citi
zens accepted the news without objection. At the Plaza, the barracks,
and other public buildings, the flag of Spain was hauled down ; that of
Mexico was raised. On March 26, 1825, California officially became
a territory of the Republic of Mexico.
The quarter century of Mexican rule (1822-1847) has been viewed
variously. To some it represents the period of full flowering of the
missions, followed by general industrial and moral disintegration as the
missions were secularized; to others it represents the Golden Age of
California, when life was easy and picturesque, when crimes were few,
food plentiful, and hospitable dons held sway over lordly ranches; and
to yet others it is the period of revolutions and rise of the spirit of
home rule among the Angelenos, the period of American penetration
and of the rise to power and influence of the Yankee dons. And each
of these interpretations has a measure of truth as a base.
The simple social organism planted by De Neve a half century
earlier had grown both large and complex. Large, in the sense that
\ngeles was now the most populous community in California, with
32 LOS ANGELES
an estimated twelve hundred inhabitants in 1830. Complex, because
of the influx of new settlers from Mexico and Spain; because of the
growing pains of the pueblo as it took its first halting steps in the
direction of self-government ; because of the secularization of the mis
sions, the oldest, most stable, and economically successful institution
hitherto known to the Californians; and finally, because of the slow
but steady influx of foreigners Germans, Scots, Englishmen, French
men, and above all Yankees bringing with them new ways of life.
The land and its inhabitants made a strong appeal to occasional
American hunters, trappers, and traders who stumbled upon it, but
they were quick to see the comparative somnolence of the Californians.
James O. Pattie, a trapper who made the overland trip to southern
California in 1828, wrote on his return to the East:
"The people live apparently unconscious of the paradise around
them. They sleep and smoke and hum Castilian tunes while nature is
inviting them to the noblest and richest rewards of honorable toil."
An outward semblance of peace camouflaged the conflicting forces
already at work in the region. First and foremost was the issue of
secularization. The mission system had not been adopted originally
by Spanish authorities as permanent ; rather, it was considered a prac
tical method of civilizing the natives and making them amenable to
government. When the first missions were established, it was believed
that after about ten years of tutelage under the padres the Indians
would be ready for citizenship entitling each to a small allotment of
land, implements, and supplies. Under the patriarchal system of the
padres, the Indians became docile neophytes, but did not develop the
capacity of self-reliant citizenship, and the missions continued to hold
the land in trust for the neophytes after the ten-year period was over.
The first attempt at secularization was made by the Spanish cortes
(congress) in 1813, by a decree never enforced because of the Mexican
revolution begun in 1810, which occupied the full attention of the
Spanish authorities.
The new Mexican government, established in 1824, took up the
issue where Spain had left it. By 1834, a P^ an f secularization had
been formulated by the diputacion under Governor Jose Figueroa of
California. Approved by the Mexican congress, enforcement was be
gun in 1835. Many approved the act in principle, others looked long
ingly at the missions rich fields, fine pasture lands, well-kept orchards,
and profitable vineyards ; to them secularization meant a chance to take
for themselves what the padres and neophytes had made productive.
The Mexican congress appointed commissioners to take inventory
of the mission properties and to distribute shares of land, seed, imple
ments, and cattle among the Indians. But the Indians were unable to
shift for themselves when the advice and guidance of the padres were
I I EBLO TO METROPOLIS 33
removed. Their religious and occupational training was soon forgotten.
Thousands ran away to the mountains and returned to native habits.
Others wandered helplessly from mission to mission. Only a few
retained and cultivated the land given them; and the attempt to estab
lish them in pueblos was a failure.
Foreseeing the inevitable ruin of the mission properties, the padres
hastened to salvage what they and their thousands of neophytes had
accumulated during more than half a century. Cattle, hitherto killed
only as their meat was needed, were now slaughtered in herds by con
tract on equal shares. There was no market for the meat, only for
tallow and hides. The discarded carcasses became carrion for the buz
zards until the Los Angeles ayuntamiento passed an ordinance compel
ling all persons slaying cattle for hides and tallow to burn the remains.
Thus the mission system of California, to whose establishment
Father Serra and many others had given their efforts, was destroyed
almost overnight. These centers of culture and Christianity, of com
fort and industry, with their beauty, wealth, spacious buildings, gardens,
and chapels, had been the marvel of Spanish America. At the begin
ning of 1834 California s 21 missions had been directing the labor of
15,000 Indians; were producing 123,000 bushels of grain; tending
779,500 head of cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and swine, and cultivating
orchards, vineyards, and well-kept vegetable gardens. Only eight years
later scarcely one-eighth of the Indians were living in or near the
missions; livestock had been reduced to 64,440 head; the mission build
ings were already falling in ruin. Orchards, vineyards, and fields had
succumbed to weeds and inroads of hungry cattle. Groves of olive
trees w r ere being chopped down for firewood.
"I am one of the great mass of laymen," said George Wharton
James, "who love the old missions for their own sake, for their history,
for the noble deeds they have enshrined, for the good their builders
did and more . . . what they sought to do for the Indians, whom
the later comers, my own race, have treated so abominably."
In the early 1840*8 the population of Los Angeles and the region
immediately surrounding it had increased to nearly 1,250 forming the
largest settlement in the territory. For this reason the Angelenos felt
that the pueblo, rather than Monterey, should become the capital of
California. The Mexican government agreed to the change, but the
seat of government never was transferred.
During the second quarter of the century a handful of foreigners,
who by accident or choice had landed in California, were gradually
taking over control of commerce and industry. These newcomers,
mostly Americans, gave their oath of loyalty to the Mexican govern
ment, joined the Catholic church, married into leading native families,
34 LOS ANGELES
and in many cases even took Spanish names and assumed the title
of "don."
First of the Yankees to settle in California was Joseph Chapman
of Massachusetts, who, arriving in 1818 as the unwilling member of a
South American privateer crew, was captured near Santa Barbara by
an irate posse of Californians. He not only talked his captors out of
hanging him, but before long had married into the family whose rancho
the crew had been on the point of plundering. He became the owner
of a large ranch and built the first gristmill in California. In 1827,
another son of Massachusetts, John Temple, arrived to become "Don
Juan," and within the next four years came Jesse Ferguson and
Nathaniel Pryor, "Don Abel" Stearns, and Jonathan (Don Juan Jose)
Warner.
There came, too, in 1828, an influx of twenty-eight other foreigners,
most of them being survivors of the American brig Danube, which had
been wrecked at San Pedro on Christmas Day. These men and their
immediate successors were received with all warmth and hospitality
characteristic of the Californians. But most of these newcomers were
hardworking, frugal Yankees, and they were unable to understand the
easy-going, manana existence of the Angelenos; to them, as to Richard
Henry Dana, they were "an idle, thriftless people, and [could] make
nothing for themselves."
Within a few years, these Yankees had become great landholders
and monopolized local commerce. By 1840 they were so powerful as
to be considered a threat to the peace and security of Mexico and were
denounced as "foreign agitators." Within a score of years after the
arrival of Joseph Chapman, Governor Juan Bautista Alvardo issued
orders for the banishment of all unnaturalized interlopers. Half a
hundred Americans and several Englishmen were rounded up, tried,
convicted of activities hostile to Mexico, and shipped off in chains to
a prison in Mexico. The English government promptly interfered in
behalf of its subjects, with the result that all the exiles were freed,
most of them making their way back to Alta California, where they
remained to challenge the rule of the Mexican governors in California.
In one of the many provincial revolutions that led by Pio Pico against
Governor Manuel Micheltorena both sides appealed to the despised
Yankees for aid, and the Yankees, with more humor than bellicosity,
helped both sides.
Pio Pico placed his forces in command of Jose Castro during the
one battle of this revolution. At the battleground in San Fernando
Valley, Benjamin D. Wilson, William Workman, and James Mc-
Kinley, of Castro s forces, slipped up a ravine and by the use of a
white flag succeeded in attracting the attention of John Gant, Samuel
J. Hensley, and John Bidwell, of Micheltorena s army, who joined
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 35
their friends. They discussed the situation, and it was agreed that all
the Americans with Micheltorena would desert and join Pico if Pico
would agree to protect them in their land grants. Wilson found Pico
and informed him of the agreement.
"Gentlemen," declaimed Pico, ". . . if you will abandon his cause
I will give you my word of honor as a gentleman . . . that I will
protect each one of you in the land that you now hold, and when you
become citizens of Mexico I will issue you the proper titles."
The two forces, each numbering about four hundred men, met on
February 20, 1845. Micheltorena had three pieces of artillery and
Castro two. They opened fire on each other at long range, and after
the burning of the gunpowder and much shouting of orders and waving
of swords (there had been one casualty a dead horse), Micheltorena
marched away toward San Fernando. The following morning, Castro
<>\ertook him, fired a few rounds from his two guns, and Micheltorena
hoisted a white flag. It was at this surrender that John Sutter was
taken prisoner. He and his company of Indians were kept in a corral
for a time, then were sent back to Sacramento.
Within two years after this deal with the Americans, Governor
Pio Pico remorsefully declared in a speech before the Departmental
Assembly :
"We find ourselves suddenly threatened by hordes of Yankee immi
grants . . . whose progress we cannot arrest. . . . They are cultivating
farms, establishing vineyards, erecting mills, sawing up lumber, build
ing workshops, and doing a thousand other things which seem natural
to them."
The Americans became so rich and powerful, and their numbers
multiplied so fast that many of the native California leaders advocated
a British protectorate for the Pacific slope, since they knew that Mexico
was too weak to resist successfully any move by the United States to
acquire the territory.
There had long been agitation in Washington for conquest and
annexation of California. The watchword "manifest destiny" was
expounded by orators and editors throughout the United States. The
phrase meant, at least to the fervid expansionists, that the obvious and
inevitable destiny of the United States was to expand, particularly to
the westward, until it should comprise one unbroken empire from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Southern leaders, moreover, demanded
annexation of California to the Union as an additional slave state. The
agitation came to a head in 1846 with the outbreak of the Mexican
War, which was brought about ostensibly by the fact that Mexico had
refused to recognize the annexation of the Republic of Texas to the
United States in 1845. At the time of the declaration of war against
Mexico, Captain John C. Fremont, either fortuitously or by a most
36 LOS ANGELES
remarkable foresight, was in the heart of California with a force of
Americans. Already, before being apprised of a state of war, he had
inspired the Bear Flag Revolt and had spiked the guns of the old
Spanish fort at the Golden Gate. Under orders from Commodore
Robert Field Stockton, Fremont loaded his California battalion on the
U.S.S. Cyane and sailed for San Diego, where he raised the American
flag. He then marched northward and joined Commodore Stockton s
force of sailors and marines, and they entered Los Angeles together,
meeting no resistance, on August 13, 1846. The conquest had been
accomplished without firing a gun.
Stockton and Fremont then marched northward, leaving Lieutenant
Archibald H. Gillespie, U.S.M.C., with fifty men in command of the
city of Los Angeles. This was one of the many mistakes made by both
Stockton and Fremont. On several other occasions Gillespie had proved
himself an excellent subaltern, but he was not an executive. He at
tempted to govern Los Angeles in the same manner he controlled a
marine guard aboard a man-of-war, and the rambunctious Angeleno of
that day was not accustomed to such discipline. Serbulo Varela, a
wild young man of the town, started what was at first more like a
personal feud with Gillespie than a rebellion; very quickly, however,
dozens of kindred spirits joined with Varela, and he feinted an attack
on the adobe building in which the Americans were garrisoned. The
attack was repulsed, but overnight more than three hundred Cali-
fornians joined Varela, and Captain Jose Maria Flores was chosen to
command this new army. Jose Antonio Carrillo was second in com
mand with the rank of major general, and Captain Andres Pico was
commander of a squadron.
On September 24th, Gillespie, harassed by the Fabian tactics of
the rebels, sent a courier, John Brown known as Juan Flaco, or
Lean John to Stockton to ask for reinforcements. Lean John carried
a package of cigarettes, the paper of each bearing the inscription :
"Believe the bearer" and Gillespie s seal. Brown started at eight
o clock in the evening of the 24th, closely pursued by fifteen Mexicans.
His horse was shot through the body, but leaped across a ravine thirteen
feet wide and ran for two miles before falling dead. Lean John then
carried his spurs for twenty-seven miles and secured a second mount
at Las Virgenes. He rode night and day, and arrived in San Fran
cisco at sunrise on the 29th, having traveled almost five hundred miles
in five days.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Gillespie had left his barracks to
fortify a strong position on Fort Hill now called Fort Moore Place.
His force outnumbered at least ten to one, Gillespie called on Benito
Wilson at Jarupa Ranch for aid. Wilson had been placed in that
section to protect the inhabitants and their property from Indian raids.
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 37
But Wilson was having his troubles, too. Threatened by the forces
of Serbulo Varela, Diego Sepulveda, and Ramon Carrillo, he had
retired to the Chino Rancho of Isaac Williams, where the second battle
of the rebellion was fought on September 26th-2yth. The Californians
surrounded the adobe ranch house in which Wilson had retreated with
twenty Americans. In the assault one Californian, Carlos Ballestros,
was killed and several of the Americans were wounded seriously. The
American force surrendered and was taken to Los Angeles, where most
of the more important men of the company were imprisoned in a small
adobe house until released in January, 1847.
Learning of the capture of Wilson and his force, Gillespie sur
rendered on the 29th of September, 1846, the same day that Lean John
delivered his message to Stockton in San Francisco. Flores and Pico
gallantly permitted Gillespie to march his men to San Pedro, where,
on October 4th, he embarked his men on the merchant ship I andalm,
but, anticipating aid from Stockton, did not leave the harbor.
In response to Lean John s message from Gillespie, Stockton ordered
Captain William Mervine, U. S. Navy, to sail for San Pedro on the
U.S.S. Savannah. He set out from Sausalito and arrived at San Pedro
on the 6th to land 350 men.
Lieutenant Gillespie and his men at once joined \vith Mervine s
force, and on the 7th they began the march to Los Angeles. They
took no artillery from the ship, and the Californians had stampeded all
the horses in the district which resulted in one of the strangest defeats
of a command in American military history. That afternoon the
American advance guard met some of the Mexicans who had been
sent out under command of Carrillo. Mervine halted and made camp
in Dominguez rancho buildings. On the morning of the 8th, Mervine
divided his force in three columns, two parties of skirmishers covering
the flanks while his main body marched in the form of a square along
the road. Carrillo also divided his mounted troops and worried the
flanks and even the rear of the columns, but his shrewd use of his one
small cannon was what defeated the sailors and marines. Carrillo
mounted this gun on wagon wheels and set it in the middle of the
road. When the Americans came within range, the gun was fired
into the mass of men, then immediately was dragged away by reatas
attached to the horsemen s saddles to be reloaded at a safe distance.
This operation was repeated six times in less than a half hour. Six
Americans were killed and as many wounded. According to Gillespie,
in an article published in the Sacramento Statesman on May 6, 1858,
Mervine lost thirteen men. Mervine ordered the retreat to San Pedro
where the entire force re-embarked. The dead were buried on the little
island which before and since then has been known as Isla de los
Muertos (isle of the dead, or Deadman s Island).
38 LOS ANGELES
The army of the Californians increased rapidly after this victory,
and swarmed between San Pedro and Los Angeles, making it impossible
for the Americans to land troops. Commodore Stockton arrived with
800 men on the U.S.S. Congress, and after making an erroneous
estimate of the situation he decided to attack Los Angeles by way of
San Diego. He arrived at that port with his entire force early in
November.
On December 2nd, General Stephen W. Kearny entered California
from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and on December 5th was joined by
Lieutenant Gillespie and thirty-five men. On December 6th, near the
small village of San Pasqual, a leading element of Kearny s force met
a troop of mounted Californians under General Andres Pico, and
there ensued the bloodiest battle in California history.
The conflict was brief but furious. Because of the heavy rain and
the time necessary for reloading, the American firearms were practically
useless. The battle resolved itself into a hand-to-hand struggle of
clubbed guns and sabers against the lances of the Californians. The
Californians were ultimately put to rout by the arrival of Kearny s
main body with two howitzers. Kearny s forces, exhausted, did not
pursue. The exact number of casualties on each side is moot. A
careful estimate, however, places American dead at eighteen, including
three regular army captains, and wounded, fifteen. Kearny himself was
wounded twice and Gillespie was for awhile left as dead on the field.
Only one death resulted from gunfire, all the others being caused by
lance thrusts. An estimate places the Californian wounded at twelve
and, some accounts say, one killed.
On the following morning Kearny started his ragged detachment
on its way to San Diego with the threatening Californians disputing
his advance. Just past San Bernardo rancho, where the contingent
had stopped for water, another skirmish occurred at the crest of a hill.
Thirty or forty Californians had obtained possession of the hill, while
the remainder threatened the Americans in the rear. The Americans
were successful in driving off their opponents without any serious
casualties, but it was apparent that an attempt to advance farther would
result in additional disaster.
Three members of the party, Lieutenant E. F. Beale of the Navy,
Kit Carson the scout, and an Indian, volunteered to attempt the
perilous journey through the enemy country to Stockton at San Diego.
Through the skill of Kit Carson the men eluded the besiegers and
separately made their way to San Diego during the second night.
Kearny s call for aid was answered by the arrival of 80 marines
and 100 sailors from Stockton s force. On December I2th the com
bined forces without further opposition from the Californians arrived
in San Diego. The Americans marched from that southern port on
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 39
December 29th, and on January 8th, 1847, fought the Battle of San
Gabriel at Paso de Bartolo just north of the present town of Whittier,
Stockton s sailors and marines driving Flores army from a strong
position on the bluffs. The next morning Stockton and Kearny re
sumed the march into Los Angeles and again met the forces of Flores in
the Battle of the Mesa in the southeastern outskirts of the city. One
man and several animals were killed on each side; but as a result of
this last battle of the campaign the Californians ceased to exist as a
military unit. Neither Stockton nor Kearny would negotiate with
Flores because he had broken his parole given at the first surrender of
the city, and they would not accept the surrender of the city from
Pico or Carrillo because neither of these officers would agree to give
up their comrades-in-arms to certain execution. Flores assembled a
small force of armed men, escaped from the city, and made his way
to Mexico.
Fremont with his recruited battalion had been advancing toward
Los Angeles from Santa Barbara since January 3rd, and on the I2th he
was in the vicinity of Cahuenga. There, after a day and night of
negotiations and the signing of an armistice, formal capitulation of
Los Angeles was made to Fremont by Andres Pico on January I3th,
1847. Fremont marched into the city on January I4th. Fremont s
action is remarkable in American martial annals from the fact that he
accepted the surrender of an enemy army and the enemy s most im
portant city, though within a few hours march of two American
officers, both of whom were his superiors. (Fremont had left the
United States as a captain but had taken the title of major in Cali
fornia; in 1846 he had been made a lieutenant colonel in the American
Army, but did not know it.) Because of his irregular activities Fre
mont was later tried by court-martial in Washington and was convicted
of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct to the prejudice of military
discipline. He was sentenced to dismissal, but President Jamo K.
Polk commuted the sentence, and Fremont resigned. The immediate
result of Fremont s armistice treaty, however, was his appointment by
Stockton as the first American civil governor of California under the
occupation which office he assumed on January igth and conducted
from headquarters in Los Angeles until March 1st, when he was de
posed by Stephen Kearny upon orders from Washington.
On July 4th, 1847, the American troops in Los Angeles celebrated
the first American Independence Day by dedicating the newly completed
Fort Moore, designed to accommodate two hundred soldiers and furnish
protection to the pueblo. It was named Moore for Captain Benjamin
I >. Moore who was killed in the Battle of San Pasqual. It was
abandoned in 1848.
4O LOS ANGELES
UNDER AMERICAN RULE
Discovery of gold in northern California in 1848 at first had an
adverse effect on the southern area. Many Angelenos left the pueblo
to join the gold rush. Forty-niners, arriving by the southern trans
continental route, passed up Los Angeles in their haste to reach the gold
fields. For a time the town s population decreased at an alarming rate,
but it was not long before the rapidly increasing number of inhabitants
in the north sent a wave of prosperity southward. The meat supply in
the San Francisco and Sacramento areas was soon exhausted, and Los
Angeles began to find a profitable market for its cattle. For many
years hides and tallow had been virtually the only marketable products
of the ranches. Now the handling of meat shipped north on the hoof
became the principal local industry. Money, which had been scarce
in Mexican times, began to circulate freely.
On April 4, 1850, the city of Los Angeles was incorporated and
became the county seat. The first United States census gave the county
of Los Angeles a population of 8,329, which included 4,091 native
white Mexicans, 4,193 domesticated Indians and 295 Americans. The
first newspaper, La Estrella de los Angeles or The Los Angeles Star,
was issued on May 17, 1851, and was printed in both Spanish and
English.
In the fifties and sixties, when tough frontier towns were common
in the West, Los Angeles probably had the largest array, per capita,
of gambling dens, saloons, and bordels, and the greatest collection of
thieves, murderers, and assorted desperadoes. It was known as a
"bad" town. Homicides averaged about one per day, and mur
dered Indians were not counted. Criminals who were too violent to
be tolerated even in the mining towns or San Francisco found refuge
in Los Angeles. Most degraded of all classes were the Indians who
had survived long after their old village of Yang-na had disappeared.
An important development of this period was the gradual trans
fer of large tracts of land from the original Mexican owners to the
Yankee newcomers. Often the procedures were of doubtful honesty,
but more often when a Mexican owner cried out that he had been
cheated of his property, the real cause was that he himself had no idea
of the value of money, never having had need for its use before the
American occupation. By various means, but usually through loan of
money on a mortgage at an exorbitant rate of weekly interest, more
than four-fifths of the great ranches around Los Angeles were soon
in American hands.
Well before the Civil War new industries were being organized.
A flour mill and a brick kiln were built. Vineyards were becoming
so extensive that wine was one of the most important exports. Citrus
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 4 1
trees had been planted on a small scale. In 1863 a water-supply sys
tem consisting of wooden pipes was installed.
Sentiment in Los Angeles during the early months of the Civil
War was greatly in favor of the South. General Albert Sidney
Johnston, commander of the Pacific Department of the Army, marched
away with 100 volunteers, to join the Confederacy. On May 17,
1 86 1, the California legislature unanimously adopted a resolution pledg
ing the State s allegiance to the Union. Shortly thereafter a detach
ment of Union troops was stationed in the city, and the Southern sym
pathizers were forced to content themselves with denunciation of
Abraham Lincoln, which appeared at intervals in the Star.
Of far more importance to Los Angeles than the Civil War was
the great drought of 1862-64, when the grazing lands became so
parched that cattle starved to death by thousands. In some cases
farmers set patrols of armed men around gardens and vineyards to
keep out famished animals. About thirty thousand head are said to
have perished on a single rancho. It was decades before the once-
prosperous southern California cattle industry recovered from effects
of this drought. Times were so hard that in 1864 no county taxes were
collected in Los Angeles, and when four downtown business lots (now
worth several million dollars) were offered at a tax sale for sixty-three
cents each, no buyers appeared. Several lean years followed before
vineyard and orchard industries became profitable enough to replace
cattle raising as a major source of income.
After the Civil War, Los Angeles gradually settled down, lost its
wild frontier character, and began to take its place as an American
community. There was a small but steady influx of population. Some
of the old ranches near town were subdivided and sold as home and
farm sites. Iron water mains and gaslights were introduced in 1867.
The erstwhile pueblo s first railway was built in 1869, to the harbor
at Wilmington, and over it went increasingly large shipments of wheat,
wine, fruit, and other agricultural products of the region. The first
newspaper, the old Star, soon had lively competition. By 1870 Los
Angeles population had increased to 5,614. There was a saloon for
every fifty persons. Larger buildings, including hotels, were erected
from time to time.
In 1871 occurred the last lynching; and also in that year the
town staged the Chinese Massacre, in which a mob of hoodlums hanged
nineteen Orientals on the charge that one of them had shot an American.
In the same period, however, cultural innovations a book store,
a library association, a dancing academy, and amateur dramatic per
formances were introduced ; saloons were licensed and regulated for
the first time; horsecars appeared on the streets; the first navel oranges
were planted at Riverside; the suburb of Pasadena was founded (as
the Indiana Colony) ; and the Federal government made small im-
42 LOS ANGELES
provements at the harbor. Angelenos began to feel civic pride, to
talk of their city s destiny. An editorial in the Express proclaimed:
"Here is our beautiful city ... set like a rich gem in one of the
most picturesque, fruitful and luxuriant valleys in the world . . .
with everything that man could desire to make him contented and
happy."
Only one thing was believed lacking a transcontinental railway
connection.
Until 1876 Los Angeles had communication with the rest of the
world only by stagecoach and freight-wagon and by sea. In that year
the Southern Pacific Railroad, encouraged by cash and land subsidies,
extended its line southward from San Francisco to Los Angeles, giving
the latter a link with the transcontinental system. But at the same
time, Los Angeles was hard hit by a local bank failure arid by another
severe drought, which wiped out the newly established sheep industry,
so that even for several years after the coming of the railroad, the town
suffered from business stagnation and general hard times.
In the mid-eighties the City of the Angels, despite its growth and
slow Americanization, still presented many of the aspects of a Mexican
pueblo. Drab, weatherbeaten adobes contrasted with the ornate Gen
eral Grant-style houses of the Americanos. The streets were often
ankle-deep with dust or mud. Loafers dozed in the scanty shade at the
Plaza. Indeed, the town had such a reputation for being backward
that the Los Angeles Times assured the rest of the country that "Los
Angeles people do not carry arms, Indians are a curiosity, the gee string
is not a common article of apparel here, and Los Angeles has three good
hotels, twenty-seven churches, and 350 telephone subscribers."
Upon this sleepy little Spanish-American town there suddenly burst,
in 1885-87, the most spectacular real-estate boom the world ever had
seen.
The causes of this phenomenal land craze were many and diverse,
its effects drastic and far-reaching. Probably no other boom ever more
surprised the inhabitants of any region. For a decade or more Southern
California had been attracting some settlers from the East solid
people, mainly, who were drawn by the mild climate and beautiful
surroundings. On land made available by the breaking up of the huge
cattle and sheep ranches these newcomers planted orchards, vineyards,
and gardens, using irrigation and modern agricultural methods. As a
result, southern California s fruit and other produce began to im
prove. Its oranges and lemons took first prize at the New Orleans
International Exposition in 1884-85 and helped to make Southern Cali
fornia known as a sort of Garden of Eden. The idea of migrating
to California for profit as well as for climate began to take hold in
the East. The spirit of the gold rush began to revive.
JMEBLO TO METROPOLIS 43
Completion of the Santa Fe Railway to Los Angeles late in 1885
brought matters to a head. The Southern Pacific was at last faced
with a competitor, and the two roads started a rate war almost imme
diately. It has been said they colluded in luring a new population*
and hence a new market to the West. In any event, they reduced
fares to the point of absurdity until, on one day in the spring of 1886,
a ticket from Kansas City to Los Angeles cost only $1.00.
Throngs descended on Los Angeles. As many as five trainloads of
people arrived daily in the astonished city. At first, the majority of
the new arrivals were homeseekers and investors, with only an occasional
speculator. This phase of the boom was spontaneous and healthy.
"Property in all directions was changing hands, and prices were
slowly rising," wrote Theodore S. Van Dyke, a contemporary observer.
"But it was all good property; prices were not extravagant; and in only
a few places were they at all ahead of what the stage of settlement
would justify." Then, in midsummer of 1886, when about a thousand
people a month were pouring into the city, the boom entered its fan
tastic phase. A wave of frenzied speculation began; prices skyrocketed
overnight.
Even the natives themselves began to speculate, and the fever was
fanned by professional "boomers" who had had experience in Eastern
and Midwestern land rushes.
After Los Angeles city lots had been snapped up, promoters began
to lay out new "cities" in farming regions, on barren hillsides, in
the desert, and even on mountaintops. These subdivisions were sur
veyed, marked with stakes and flags, and thrown on the market; almost
overnight people flocked to the site, stood in line for hours to buy.
Some paid as much as $1,000 for a place near the head of the line.
By the encf of 1887 there were twenty-five mushroom towns along the
Santa Fe Railway between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, and still
others were springing up all over the Los Angeles area. One specu
lator sold about four thousand lots in the Mojave Desert for as much
as $250 apiece, the cost to him having been about ten cents each.
Another, after advertising that a railroad would serve this tract, laid
down fence posts to look like ties. A typical advertisement read :
THIS IS PURE GOLD! !
SANTA ANA,
The Metropolis of Southern California s Fairest Valley!
Chief Among Ten Thousand, or the One
Altogether Lovely!
Beautiful! Busy! Bustling! Booming (It
Can t be Beat!
The town now has the biggest kind of a
big, big boom.
A Great Big Boom ! And you
Can Accumulate Ducats by Investing!
44 LOS ANGELES
In 1887, in Los Angeles County alone, recorded transactions totaled
about $100,000,000 and many, perhaps most, of the sales were not
recorded. Land prices soared in a few months from $100 to $1,500
an acre. In all, approximately sixty new "cities" were laid out in
Los Angeles County, principally by unscrupulous "town jobbers"-
professional real-estate manipulators who had moved westward from
one boom to another. By the end of the boom these "cities" had ac
quired a total population of less than 3,500. According to the his
torian Newmark: "There were enough subdivisions to accommodate
ten million people; enough syndicates to manage the affairs of a nation."
The frantic piling up of fictitious values began to subside toward
the end of 1887. Land owners who sensed that the boom had reached
its peak decided to cash in while prices were still inflated. Finding
no takers, they reduced their prices and the panic was on. By the
summer of 1888, about two and a half years after it had begun, the
boom collapsed entirely. Most of the new "townsites" were soon
obliterated by sagebrush. Assessment figures dropped below their pre-
boom levels, and banks loaned only on downtown property.
A MODERN METROPOLIS IS BORN
When the city recovered from the immediate after-effects, and took
stock of its remaining assets, the situation was seen to be far less
discouraging than might have been expected. Many of the more sub
stantial newcomers had stayed in Los Angeles, determined to make
a living. Not a bank had failed during the crisis. The climate,
moreover, and the fertile soil, were still there to be enjoyed and
exploited.
Local leaders not only began at once to publish prophecies con
cerning the magnificent future still awaiting the region, but they also
almost immediately began to try to lure a new and different kind of
immigration to southern California. This time the appeal was not to
be addressed to get-rich-quick investors but to respectable, hard-work
ing farmers of the Middle West. Businessmen, railroads, and editors
co-operated to launch an intensive campaign of propaganda, and to
carry out their plan they formed, in the autumn of 1888, the organ
ization that has since then become the Los Angeles Chamber of Com
merce. In the next two years, more than a million pieces of persuasive
"literature" were broadcast in the corn and wheat belts. Exhibits of
prize agricultural produce from southern California were established
in Chicago and at fairs and expositions, and later a special train,
"California on Wheels," made a two-year tour with prize fruits and
vegetables, a brass band, tons of pamphlets, and a squad of high-powered
Los Angeles salesmen.
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 45
These and similar tactics, carried out with increasing energy over
a period of years, soon began to achieve the Chamber s prime object
"to induce immigration" of men and money. The boom had lifted
the city s population from about 11,000 in 1880 to more than 50,000
in 1890, despite the fact that whole trainloads of people had fled after
the collapse. As a result of the extraordinary campaign of the Chamber
of Commerce, the population more than doubled in the next decade,
exceeding 100,000 by 1900; and the newcomers, this time, were thrifty,
industrious, God-fearing folk, many of whom possessed means and
almost all of whom were anxious to work and progress with the
country.
Los Angeles as a modern American metropolis may be said to date
from the end of the boom and the founding of the Chamber of Com
merce. The boom made a permanent change in the city s character.
The hybrid Mexican-American pueblo was no more. It was now
American-dominated not only in numbers but also in spirit. Its face
had been lifted streets had been paved, larger buildings erected, and
modern urban facilities (electric car lines, electric lights, water mains,
and sewers) had been introduced and swiftly expanded. Even the
city s politics had changed. Until 1880 the Democratic party had
ruled supreme. After that time, owing largely to immigration from
the Middle West, the Republicans gained increasing majorities and
reigned unchallenged for approximately half a century.
"The major part of our present population," editorialized the
Herald in 1895, "hardly knew there was such a town as Los Angeles
on the Pacific end of the United States ten years ago."
The tremendous commercial expansion throughout the county in
the nineties amazed old-timers. There was, for instance, the discovery
of petroleum near the heart of the Los Angeles business district. Ex
ploration for oil in Los Angeles County had begun in the Newhall-
Ventura district in 1860, and all production in California had been
from that section. But in 1892 Edward L. Doheny and Charles A.
Canfield brought to the man in the street the idea that boundless
wealth might be in his own backyard. Their first oil well, flowing
forty-five barrels a day, stirred the town as nothing else had before
or since.
In less than five years, 200 companies were organized and 2,500
wells were drilled within the city limits. Houses were torn down to
make room for oil rigs, and derricks and wells, as close together as
holes in a pepperbox, were soon pumping oil over a wide residential
area. The city council was forced to curtail the drilling operations
after the derricks had ruined the district for residential purposes, but
today, shut from public view behind stores, homes, and board fences,
some of these early wells are still producing oil.
46 LOS ANGELES
The town-lot drilling in Los Angeles stimulated exploration for
oil in other sections of the state, until in the succeeding years California
was producing a quarter of the world s supply, the greater part coming
from the Los Angeles basin. In 1939 Los Angeles County alone pro
duced 95,000,000 barrels.
The organization of the California Fruit Growers Exchange was
another significant event, leading as it did to the development of the
citrus industry as Los Angeles most valuable agricultural asset.
But probably one of the most important events of the nineties
and one whose potentialities were most clearly recognized at the time
was the successful conclusion of Los Angeles long fight to obtain an
appropriation for the construction of a deep-water harbor at San Pedro.
Los Angeles Harbor, now the largest man-made port in the world,
was a dismal mud flat when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo marked it down
on his crude discovery map in 1542. Subsequent explorers Sebastian
Vizcaino, who christened the bay San Pedro in 1602, Caspar de Portola,
Captain George Vancouver of the English Navy, and numerous Spain-
bound galleon commanders from Manila noted the bay s existence but
not its potential value. Its use increased steadily after the Yankee
ship, Leila Byrd, out of Boston, home-bound from the Sandwich Islands,
dropped anchor off San Pedro in 1805. Its captain, William Shaler,
traded sugar, clothing, and household goods for sea-otter pelts, and
mission-produced hides and tallow. He opened such a lucrative market
that east-coast skippers flocked to the port despite attempts to enforce
a foreign-trade ban imposed by the King of Spain. Mexico gained her
independence, eased trade restrictions, and by 1820 a fleet of Yankee
ships was sailing around the Horn to load California hides and tallow
at San Pedro.
Little was done to improve port facilities. Cargoes were lightered
from ship to shore. Describing the harbor in Two Years Before the
Mast (1840), Richard Henry Dana wrote: "the desolate place . . .
the worst we had seen yet."
Don Abel Stearns (see The Harbor: San Pedro and Wilmington},
a Yankee whose itching feet carried him to Los Angeles before the
American occupation, held the first port concession. Securing permis
sion from the Los Angeles Ayuntamiento (city council), he erected a
warehouse at San Pedro, and urged the annexation of that tiny pueblo
by the inland city. Aging letters in museums show his efforts to get a
road built and the landing place improved at public expense. Stearns
operated a stage route connecting San Pedro and Los Angeles ; one-way
tickets from San Francisco to San Pedro were $55 for a tedious ride on
puffing paddlewheelers and to this was added $10 for a buckboard trip
inland to Los Angeles. Freight was approximately $10 a ton.
Congressional attention was drawn to the port when James Collier,
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 47
Commissioner of Customs at San Francisco, investigating rumors, re
ported: "More goods are landed at San Pedro than at any other port
except San Francisco ... a large amount of smuggling is carried on."
Discovery of gold and the rush to the fields somewhat increased
traffic through San Pedro. After California was admitted to the Union,
efforts to cut freight rates began. A memorial presented to Congress
by Thomas H. Benton, United States Senator from Missouri, showed
it cost "as high as $10.25 to move a barrel of flour from a warehouse
in San Francisco to San Pedro." Augustus W. Timms and Phineas
Banning each opened a stage route from San Pedro to Los Angeles.
Senator Benton always had shown interest in California. He was
the father-in-law of John C. Fremont, who received the surrender of
the Pueblo de Los Angeles.
Next, Phineas Banning (see The Harbor: San Pedro and Wilming
ton), obtained permission to build a landing in the slough created by
the floodwaters of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers. He con
trived a lighterage and ferry system, and shortened the route to Los
Angeles four miles. In 1858, with Benjamin D. Wilson, another
pioneer, Banning laid out the present town of Wilmington, the inner
harbor.
Banning was one of the leaders in the movement that completed
the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad in 1869 with its water
terminal at Wilmington. In 1872 the road was incorporated in the
Southern Pacific system and four years later the Southern Pacific com
pleted its link from Oakland to Los Angeles, making Wilmington a
terminal of this feeder to a transcontinental line. The Southern Pacific
extended its tracks to San Pedro and spent $3,000,000 dredging and,
thrusting a long wharf into what is now known as the outer harbor.
Fearing a monopoly, public sentiment demanded a "free port."
That was the beginning of a long, stubborn fight. When the Southern
Pacific extended its tracks to San Pedro, the little town of Wilmington,
neglected, was left dozing in the sun. The government entered the
fight indirectly when in 1871 it spent $200,000 on a breakwater be
tween Deadman s Island and Rattlesnake Island, in an effort to force
the main channel tides to scour out a sandbar. The Southern Pacific,
sensing possibilities of large-scale government development and to fore
stall competition, began to acquire control of the oceanside. It pur
chased a railroad that Senator John P. Jones of Nevada and associates
had built between Santa Monica and Los Angeles. Then Collis P.
Huntington, Southern Pacific president, abandoned the San Pedro-
Wilmington area and centered all development at Santa Monica (see
The Harbor: San Pedro and Wilmington). The company built the
Long Wharf, 4,600 feet long to deep water, devised a buoy system, and
48 LOS ANGELES
wafted for the government to build a breakwater. The railroad leaders
christened their site the Tort of Los Angeles."
San Pedro had been approved by one board of army engineers, but
there was demand for a resurvey to include Santa Monica. A second
board approved San Pedro, but pressure in Congress delayed action.
Stephen M. White, United States Senator from Los Angeles, and
affectionately known as the "Father of Los Angeles harbor," persuaded
President Grover Cleveland to appoint a third board, a mixed com
mission later known as the Walker Board. This committee approved
San Pedro in its report in 1897, but the Long Wharf backers refused
to admit defeat. Senator White and Collis P. Huntington engaged in
a bitter fight that echoed throughout the United States. Through
Senator White s efforts, appropriations were earmarked for the "free
port" plan. On April 26, 1899, President William McKinley pressed
an electric button in Washington that dumped the first carload of rock
into San Pedro Bay for the breakwater of the present outer harbor,
which was completed in 1910.
While the breakwater was under construction, Los Angeles edged
out toward her port. In 1906 the city annexed the "shoestring strip,"
a quarter-of-a-mile-wide path to the ocean, and in 1909 San Pedro and
Wilmington were consolidated with Los Angeles. The beach area
became officially the Port of Los Angeles on February 13, 1910.
Opening of the Panama Canal and the agricultural and commercial
development of the Los Angeles area, with an increase in the import
and export trade, continually taxed the harbor s facilities despite con
sistent development including construction of a second breakwater.
The city of Los Angeles has spent more than $42,000,00x3 and the
Federal government more than $17,000,000, in addition to what was
spent on government buildings at the port.
While Los Angeles in the closing years of the century battled with
her harbor and transportation problems, the Spanish-American War
excited high and at times bitter interest.
A great proportion of the residents were of Spanish extraction, and
although they proclaimed their loyalty to the United States before the
outbreak of hostilities, some unpleasant events resulted from what
today is known as "war hysteria."
When the actual declaration of war came, fears that the southern
California coast would be raided by the enemy were expressed. Steps
were taken immediately to mobilize this region s quota of volunteers,
and the Seventh Regiment of the State Militia went into camp at the
Presidio, San Francisco. Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Times,
was named brigadier general of the volunteers, and was sent to the
Philippines for service.
The Seventh Regiment was held at the Presidio during the entire
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 49
period of the war despite the fact that regiments from elsewhere report
ing later were successful in being sent to the front where they saw
active service. Conditions at the Presidio camp were bad and as the
members of the regiment impatiently awaited call, fevers developed
and many soldiers died.
An oil boom marked the closing years of the nineteenth century.
When oil had been discovered within the city limits several years
before, feverish drilling in residential sections had resulted in over
production, waste, and low prices. Now, however, new uses were
found for crude oil, and the industry began to flourish. A Los Angeles
man invented a crude-oil burner for steam generation. Another dis
covered a way to fire brick with oil ; and many of the refining processes
were developed that increased its use in hundreds of ways. Another
important innovation was the use of large tanks in which to store the
product instead of allowing it to flood the market. Natural gas, which
had formerly been allowed to escape from the wells, was piped and sold ;
its presence in large quantities became a powerful factor in drawing
certain industries to Los Angeles. As a result of the boom, the oil
fields were extended far beyond the original area, and the next few
years saw the development of Southern California as one of the world s
leading petroleum centers.
Los Angeles entered the twentieth century as a dynamic American
city of 102,479 persons. In the fifty years since it had come under
United States sovereignty, the one-time pueblo had weathered two
severe droughts and an hysterical land boom. The successful struggle
against these hardships had developed a civic pride and cohesiveness
and had made Los Angeles a city in spirit as well as in name. True,
it did not yet look like a metropolis. Many of the streets were still
unpaved, and the increasing numbers of automobiles kicked dust or
mud on passers-by ; most of the downtown buildings were small and
the houses drab frame structures. There was a definite "Old West"
atmosphere. But despite its appearance the town was coming of age,
acquiring cultural institutions, new industries and types of agriculture,
a growing commerce and receiving a never-ending stream of new
comers, who brought capital to invest and needs to be supplied by the
local market.
The Chamber of Commerce campaign "to induce immigration"
had proved fruitful, and was continued with varying intensity. An
other kind of campaign was launched in 1907 by the Southern Pacific
Railroad and the California Fruit Growers Exchange, formed ten years
earlier by citrus growers to provide a nonprofit, co-operative marketing
agency for their oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. Formerly they had
had to depend on commission brokers, whose chaotic marketing methods
left little profit for the growers. The Exchange s marketing system
5<D LOS ANGELES
proved so effective that by 1907 it was shipping about half of the Cali
fornia citrus crop. In this year the Southern Pacific offered to join the
Exchange in an eastern advertising campaign, each organization to put
up $10,000. Iowa w T as chosen as the test ground. Fruit was shipped
in special trains. The slogan "Oranges for Health California for
Wealth" was advertised throughout Iowa. Other promotional activ
ities were energetically undertaken, and the trademark "Sunkist" was
adopted to identify Exchange oranges.
This combined effort to increase citrus consumption and lure popu
lation had sensational results. The Exchange s business increased 17.7
per cent nationally, but consumption of California citrus fruits in Iowa
went up 50 per cent. At the same time, immigration from Iowa to
California swelled markedly.
The delighted Exchange voted in the following year to expand the
territory covered by its advertising, and to spend $25,000. Since then
the annual advertising appropriation has risen to many times that figure ;
oranges have been "sold" as a staple article of diet to a nation that
formerly regarded them as a luxury, and the California Fruit Growers
Exchange has served as the model for scores of co-operative marketing
organizations throughout the world. Though the appeal for immigra
tion was dropped later by the Exchange, it was carried on by the
Chamber of Commerce and other groups, with the result that Los
Angeles population more than tripled in the decade 1900-1910.
QUEST FOR WATER
Water both fresh and salt has been a vital factor in shaping
Los Angeles destiny. It was the man-made harbor that enabled the
city to spurt ahead of other Pacific Coast cities. Similarly, it was the
city s success in obtaining an ample water supply that made it possible
to support a large population. The story of how this vital water supply
was created is as dramatic as that of the struggle for a harbor; in
addition, it is the story of feats that are the pride of the engineering
world.
Discovery of the Los Angeles River helped determine the site for
establishment of Los Angeles in 1781 by Governor Felipe de Neve.
The padres of San Fernando Mission, in 1799, two years after the
mission s founding, dammed up the river and found themselves in the
first local litigation over water rights, with the pueblo as complainant.
The pueblo won the initial victory in a series of water-supply disputes
that were to high light the history of the city.
Early in the nineteenth century, enterprising residents constructed
a dam across the Los Angeles River, and installed the pueblo s first
water wheel, with buckets attached to the paddles. As the wheel
.PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 51
was revolved by the force of the flowing stream, water was lifted
from the river and spilled into a canal. Thus townspeople were able
to irrigate land at an elevation considerably above that of the river.
For 133 years the river was the sole source of water for Los
Angeles. From the beginning until 1865 the town s water-distributing
system was publicly owned. Eventually the town council decided to
lease the municipal system to a private operator, and three years later,
in 1868, turned over the city s waterworks for a period of thirty years
to a privately owned corporation, later known as the City Water
Company. In 1898 the city sought to regain its water system and after
four years of negotiation and litigation, purchased the distributing lines
and equipment for $2,000,000. It immediately made a 63 per cent
reduction in domestic rates.
The Los Angeles River, under normal conditions, was capable of
supplying the needs of 250,000 people. By 1905 the city s population
was more than 160,000, and increasing at an amazing rate. Then,
during a series of dry years the river was barely able to meet the city s
requirements, and it became clear that it would not be able to serve a
larger community.
Seeking a solution, civic leaders conceived the plan of getting water
rights in the valley of the Owens River, a stream 250 miles to the
northeast, fed by the snow waters of the High Sierras. William
Mulholland, chief engineer of the Municipal Water Bureau, was sent
to investigate. When he returned, he formulated plans for construction
of an aqueduct capable of delivering enough water to meet the needs
of 2,000,000 persons.
The first bond issue of $1,500,000, needed to purchase rights-of-way
and start preliminary work, was submitted to the people in 1905. The
vote in favor of the issue was in the ratio of 14 to I.
Work on the aqueduct was begun in the fall of 1907, and com
pleted in 1913. When finished it included 142 separate tunnels aggre
gating 53 miles in length, 12 miles of inverted steel siphons, 24 miles
of open unlined conduit, 39 miles of open cement-lined conduit, and
97 miles of covered conduit. Additional miles were taken up by three
large reservoirs, the largest of which, the Haiwee Reservoir, was
capable of storing more than 19,000,000 gallons of water.
Present length of the Los Angeles Aqueduct from the intake in
Owens River Valley to the San Fernando Reservoir is 233.3 miles.
But the water was not brought to Los Angeles. The aqueduct
ended at San Fernando and Los Angeles went to the aqueduct ; almost
the whole of San Fernando Valley was annexed by the city. In the
In-winning, the bulk of the \vater was distributed to San Fernando
farms, but by 1939, the amount furnished to Los Angeles amounted to
80 per cent of the city s supply.
52 LOS ANGELES
In 1917, the first hydroelectric generating plant along the Los
Angeles Aqueduct was completed at St. Francis Dam in San Francis-
quito Canyon. Power from this plant, distributed to consumers at low
rates, opened the way to industrial expansion. Factory wheels began
to hum, production of goods to multiply. New jobs were created for
the ever-increasing population; the value of manufactured products
increased. Success of this venture stimulated further power develop
ment ; a second plant was proposed and a bond issue for it was approved
by an overwhelming majority of the voters. Construction was started
in August, 1919, and was rushed to completion with an installed
capacity of 41,000 horsepower in July, 1920.
The necessity for the Los Angeles Aqueduct was more than justi
fied by 1923, when it was apparent that an additional supply of water
would soon be needed : the population was climbing toward the second
million with 100,000 new residents a year.
Realizing that the city must begin to prepare for the future, Chief
Engineer Mulholland began to survey a route for an adequate supply
to bring water to the city from the Colorado River. Special problems
were presented by the erratic flow of the river. Enormous floods
threatened destruction of lower river areas but in some places flow was
too low to meet needs of lands already under cultivation.
Possibilities of controlling the flow of the river had been under
study by the Federal government. At the time the early aqueduct
plans were made by the city of Los Angeles, the United States Reclama
tion Service was studying the problem of storing the water of the
Low T er Colorado. Earlier plans contemplated storage for flood control
and irrigation only, but potential returns and benefits from these
sources were inadequate to justify the cost of the project; but, when
it developed that southern California offered a market for power that
could be produced incidentally, the problem of financing was simplified.
A tangle of legal, diplomatic, and political complications preceded
passage of the Boulder Canyon Project Act in December, 1928. Con
struction of Boulder Dam, rising 727 feet, has created the world s
largest artificial lake, with a storage capacity of 30,500,000 acre-feet.
This reservoir controls and conserves the flood waters of the river; and,
in addition, makes possible development of from four billion to six
billion kilowatt-hours of electrical energy a year.
With storage of the Colorado waters assured, and the quality of its
water established, plans for an aqueduct went forward. The principal
cities of Southern California became interested and the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California was incorporated on Decem
ber 6, 1928, to embrace Los Angeles, Anaheim, Beverly Hills, Burbank,
Compton, Fullerton, Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena, San Marino,
Santa Ana, Santa Monica, and Torrance.
I LEBLO TO METROPOLIS 53
A major problem was selection of a general route for the aqueduct,
since all presented serious difficulties. With much of the area unsur-
veyed, the first task was contour mapping of approximately 25,000
square miles of desert and rugged terrain where roads were practically
nonexistent. In many places the surveyors had to build trails. The
survey showed that bringing water to the Metropolitan District by
gravity was impossible, both physically and financially. Boulder Dam,
however, provided the means for diversion of water by pumping, since
power would be available, and construction of another dam, down
stream, would enable diversion into an aqueduct to be built over a more
advantageous route. The site selected was about sixteen miles upstream
from Parker, Arizona. The aqueduct with a pump lift of 1,617 feet,
reaches the coastal plain through a thirteen-mile tunnel in the San
Gorgonio Pass of the San Jacinto Mountains, south of Beaumont.
Five pumping plants, powered by a transmission line built by the Metro
politan Water District from Boulder Dam, lift water from Parker
Dam to the coastal plain.
From the intake at Parker Dam to Los Angeles, the Colorado River
Aqueduct covers a distance of 392 miles.
Although a total of forty-three tunnels was necessary to carry the
water through mountainous territory, construction of the one through
the San Jacinto Mountains was the most difficult. At the outset, a
heavy inflow of water was encountered, submerging tunnel, shaft, and
all equipment. Further boring encountered heavy, wet ground and
large flows of water on all sides. Despite the hardships, determined
men with modern machines went steadily forward through the mud
and water to the final "holing through" on November 19, 1938.
A year later, to the day, the aqueduct from Parker Dam reached
Lake Mathews, the storage basin at the upper end of the area to be
served. This reservoir permits gravity delivery to the entire area.
Under construction in 1940 near La Verne is a softening plant, which
will treat all water serving the thirteen cities of the Metropolitan
Water District. Also under construction are the various feeder lines
that will carry water from Lake Mathews to the cities early in 1941.
While construction of Boulder Dam was precipitated by Southern
California s need for water, of major interest to the city is the Boulder
Dam power, first transmitted to Los Angeles in October, 1936. These
mighty power generators are enabling fulfillment of prophecies of vast
industrial growth for the region.
LOS ANGELES PARTICIPATES IX THE WORLD WAR
The first Sunday in April, 1917, at the time the star of the old
German Empire seemed at its greatest ascendancy, and with the United
54 LOS ANGELES
States nursing the wounds to its dignity and pride caused by a series
of provocations by sea and land, a leading morning newspaper described
the citizens of Los Angeles as "indifferent to the growing war cloud."
Wednesday of the same week, the Los Angeles Times reported that
President Woodrow Wilson was ready to present his war plans to the
Congress, and, on the historic sixth of April 1917, stated:
"Los Angeles waited calmly for the fateful flash from Washington
that spells war. The streets were very quiet."
This quiet, natural in view of the remoteness of Los Angeles from
Europe, was a prelude to intense activity following promptly upon
the declaration of war, and increasing for the ensuing two years. Be
fore the month of April had passed, 375 local applications had been
accepted "for entrance to the officers training camp at the Presidio."
The San Francisco army post, the old Spanish Presidio, was to receive
a steady flow of Los Angeles applicants until, by the time the camp
opened on May 8th, approximately eight hundred Los Angeles men
were enrolled for training.
Before this exciting April had passed, Mayor Frederick T. Wood
man was setting an example to increase food production by convert
ing his flower borders into vegetable gardens and the city was checking
supplies available for immediate national use as prices for food soared ;
William Gibbs McAdoo, then Secretary of the Treasury and later
United States Senator for California, coined the phrase "Liberty Loan";
social events assumed a patriotic air, with the Stars and Stripes as the
prevailing decorative motif, and the first of the giant "community
sings" of the war era was held in what is now the Philharmonic
Auditorium.
A report, early in the war days, that the plot to blow up the
Welland Canal had originated in Los Angeles tightened the nerves of
citizens. Alleged enemy operations south of the Mexican border multi
plied rumor and heightened public tension. Thousands of dollars began
to pour into Red Cross and war-relief agencies. Registered nurses
were organized in great numbers for home and foreign service. The
"bluejackets" vanished from San Pedro streets and their ships disap
peared from anchor off the breakwater. The Chamber of Commerce
warned citizens against food hoarding. Film celebrities came forward
to help in recruiting and war-aid activities. The large Mexican popu
lation and all foreign groups threw themselves in the war picture
without reservation. Streets began to resound with fanfares, parades
marched, flags waved in the doorways of recruiting offices, and the
"quiet" that had received editorial notice at the beginning of April was
no more. All processes of the city s life began to operate at high speed.
Enlistments from Los Angeles city and county totaled more than
75,000 men, most of whom were incorporated into the famous gist and
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 55
4Oth Divisions. Other local men were found in practically every divi
sion of the American Expeditionary Forces and fought on the bloodiest
battlefields during the closing year of the war.
Los Angeles was represented in the section of the American Ex
peditionary Force sent to Vladivostok to aid the Allies in maintaining
order while the vast Russian Empire was torn by internal struggle,
and to consolidate Czech forces operating in Siberia.
Among the training services in Los Angeles were an observation
balloon school, at Arcadia, and the training base for naval recruits,
at San Pedro.
Los Angeles underwent diverse changes while action was raging
abroad. Food production in Los Angeles County attained immense
proportions. Parties were turned into benefits to foster war aims.
The city continuously entertained foreign representatives. Knitting for
the soldiers became a public activity, with women purling on cars and
busses and in theaters or on street corners. On September I, 1917,
the whole city joined in a monster rally to honor the fighting forces.
After the armistice Los Angeles sponsored numerous postwar de
velopments. Local posts of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the
American Legion were organized. A little-known veteran organization,
the A. E. F., Siberia, had its origin in Los Angeles, at the Del Mar
Club, and has become a national institution, with members engaged in
the study of Oriental politics as their objective. Patriotic women pro
moted the erection of the ornamental War Memorial statue in Pershing
Square. A huge coliseum was built in Exposition Park as a war
memorial.
The war was followed by the great southern California boom of
the twenties less spectacular than that of the eighties, but far more
substantial and long-lived. The census of 1920 gave Los Angeles a
population of 576,673, an increase of a quarter of a million since 1910;
during the next decade, the total reached 1,238,048. Building opera
tions in the county to provide housing for the newcomers and quarters
for industrial expansion rose in value from $88,000,000 in 1920 to
$177,000,000 in 1939, with a peak of more than $297,000,000 in
1923. In recent years Los Angeles has ranked second to New York
in the amount spent in building construction. School enrollment in
the county reached 693,000 in 1939, and the assessed valuation of
county property trebled between 1920 and that year, to $2,551,000,000.
The growth of Los Angeles following the World War was equalled
only by that of Chicago immediately after the Civil War. The Cham
ber of Commerce intensified its activities of previous years, advertising
the city at fairs and expositions in the East, bringing conventions to
the city, and persuading eastern manufacturers to establish branch plants
in Los Angeles. Unlike the Chamber of Commerce, the Ail-Year Club,
56 LOS ANGELES
founded in 1921, had only one well-defined objective to persuade tour
ists to come to southern California, in the hope they would spend
money in summer as well as winter, and eventually decide to remain
permanently. The hopes, thanks to advertising campaigns in eastern
newspapers and magazines, were realized to a spectacular degree. Ac
cording to All- Year Club reports, the annual tourist volume jumped
from 200,000 in 1921 to 1,703,167 in 1939, and the visitors were esti
mated to have spent $193,834,763 in the latter year alone. Summer
travel has surpassed that of winter, about one million tourists visiting
the region in the summer of 1939. The All- Year Club estimates that
one out of every ten tourists returns here to live, and that the largest
part of southern California income belongs to retired persons living on
private means. Even if these estimates are discounted, they show how
successfully southern California has been sold to the Nation.
As new residents poured into Los Angeles during the early twenties
it became, in population, area, and industry, the fastest-growing major
city in the United States. There was a real-estate boom as spectacular
as that of the eighties. Office buildings sprang up throughout the down
town section, and over the ever-expanding area of the city, residences
of every architectural style were hastily put up. The peak of the build
ing boom came in 1923 with the construction of 800 mercantile build
ings, 400 industrial buildings, 60 hotels, 130 schools, 130 warehouses,
700 apartment houses and 25,000 single- and double-dwellings. As the
boom reached its dizziest heights, foot frontage prices doubled, tripled
and quadrupled. In 1923 alone, 1,057 tracts were put on the market
and 1 1, 608 acres were subdivided in the city. Similar booms hit sur
rounding communities. Thousands of people became quickly and
often only temporarily wealthy.
With its population doubled in a little more than five years, the city
annexed one community after the other, most of them induced to come
in through their need of the water Los Angeles could supply. The
original twenty-eight square miles of the town, multiplied thirteenfold
by 1920, when the city stretched over a vast area from the Harbor to
San Fernando Valley, now was to leap forward to its present area of
450 square miles. In 1923, twelve annexations brought in 19,000 acres
of new city territory.
Accompanying the advertising campaigns of the booster organiza
tions, the rapid influx of population and the building boom, industry on
a large scale began to come to Los Angeles after 1919. The county
had entered the manufacturing market with a $25,000,000 output in
1899, but by 1919 the annual production of $417,000,000 entitled it
to twenty-seventh rank among the Nation s industrial counties. The
only large industry had been motion pictures, already producing 80
per cent of the world supply. Now new and larger industries entered
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 57
the city, attracted by the cheap and abundant water, power, and natural
L r a> and oil, the excellent transportation facilities, the harbor, and the
large growing local market. One of the first large industries to come
was the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which built a $6,000,000
plant in 1919. Throughout the twenties others followed, and in 1922
the Central Manufacturing District was formed in the city of Vernon,
previously incorporated for industrial purposes exclusively. In 1924,
the growth of new industry fell off, yet 700 new industries were estab
lished in that year. With the coming of the Firestone and Goodrich
Tire companies in 1927, Los Angeles became the country s second rub
ber center. Later came the aircraft and automobile assembly plants.
Established industries expanded enormously. Oil production in the
county rose from 38,000,000 barrels in 1922 to 176,000,000 barrels
in 1929. Numerous new oil refineries were built, including Pan-
American Petroleum s $18,000,000 tank farm and refinery near the
harbor, and the Shell Oil Company s $10,000,000 plant. The Santa Fe
Springs oil field was developed successfully in 1919; the Huntington
Beach section was discovered in 1920, and the Signal Hill bonanza the
following year.
Los Angeles also became not only the richest agricultural county in
the United States, but one of the most diversified agricultural regions
as well. By 1935 every twenty-four hours saw at least one of the
county s 150 commercial crops being harvested and shipped. This agri
cultural diversity gave the region a large degree of economic stability,
despite heavy citrus losses in 1937. The agricultural wealth for that
year was divided as follows: fruits and nuts, $39,927,207, livestock,
$35,I95>895> truck crops, $10,398,035, and field crops, $7,055,215. The
total of all crops in Los Angeles county in 1939 was $76,074,000.
Citrus crops account for nearly one-third of the county s agricultural
income; there are nearly 45,000 acres of oranges, 12,000 acres of
lemons, and a smaller grapefruit acreage. In addition, Los Angeles
County is a leading producer of walnuts and avocados. There are
130,000 acres of field crops chiefly hay, grain, and beans and 50,000
acres producing twenty-four different truck crops, mainly green beans,
cabbage, cauliflower, celery, lettuce, and tomatoes.
Although Los Angeles has a success story that makes it the envy
of other aspiring communities, it has not entirely escaped misfortunes.
Development and growth of the region have been slowed down several
times by disaster, but in each case the interruptions have been only
temporary.
1 he region has been affected by earthquakes, some of which have
resulted in loss of life and damage to property. The average Angeleno
regards an earth tremor with less apprehension than persons elsewhere
regard a severe electrical storm or a tornado. Of the quakes that have
58 LOS ANGELES
visited southern California during recent years, three have been severe
enough to result in loss of life and in property damage. In 1920 a
tremor struck Inglewood, and part of the business district was damaged.
Probably the most severe quakes experienced in this region were those
of 1925, in Santa Barbara, and 1933 in Long Beach, Compton, and the
surrounding cities.
The Long Beach-Compton tremor, in which 118 people were killed,
resulted in changes in the Los Angeles County building code ; even more
drastic restrictions now govern construction throughout the area. Other
southern California counties adopted similar measures. Laws enforcing
a height limit of 150 feet for buildings in Los Angeles proper have long
been in effect and represent an added safeguard against earthquake
damage.
The Los Angeles area has also had serious floods. Three of them,
separated by long periods of years, came after exceptionally heavy rain
fall in the semiarid region and resulted in great damage. In 1914,
when precipitation reached record figures, the flood waters confined
themselves in most cases to the natural stream beds and damage was
small except to bridges and territory along stream beds. Damage was
much greater in 1934, when the waters rushing down the mountain
canyons swept over the La Crescenta Valley and the Montrose terri
tory. Forty-five persons were drowned at this time. Four years later
heavy rains again fell in the region and the storm waters backed into
San Fernando Valley, causing heavy losses.
Perhaps the district s greatest disaster at least that in which the
largest loss of life was recorded occurred when the St. Francis Dam,
a unit of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, broke in 1928, .and released a wall
of water that swept down the Santa Clara River through Los Angeles
and Ventura counties, leaving 451 dead and $12,000,000 worth of
damage in its wake.
TROUBLE AHEAD
Los Angeles rushed through the decade of 1920-30 as a lushly pros
perous, spectacular city. It was enjoying not only the nation-wide
prosperity of the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era, but the prosperity of
a boom within a boom. Its prodigious motion-picture industry, the rise
of industry and building, its sensational real estate values, and the rush
of tourists and new residents, made it a mecca to workingmen and
businessmen alike. Los Angeles not only had an assessed valuation of
$2,000,000,000, bank debits of $14,000,000,000, and a harbor commerce
of approximately $1,000,000,000 in 1929; it was also gifted with a pros
perity which touched most of its citizens. Investments with high re
turns were available to all; nearly everyone had an automobile (there
PUEBLO TO METROPOLIS 59
were more motor vehicles per capita than in any other American city) ;
everybody was able to enjoy the sun, the climate, and the scenery.
As the prosperity wave reached its peak there were unrecognized
hints that Los Angeles, in common with the rest of the United States,
was to face bad times. Stock exchange transactions jumped from
27,000,000 shares in 1927 to 67,000,000 shares in 1928, and a series
of financial crashes began.
The first phase of the depression after the 1929 stock crash affected
Los Angeles much as it did other cities. Business slumped disastrously
and thousands lost their livelihood. Economic discussion came to the
fore. Public and private charities were swamped under demands for
help. By the spring of 1932, with relief utterly inadequate, the unem
ployed in southern California began to respond to the depression in an
unusual manner.
The first development was the self-help movement, which began in
Compton when the unemployed went to the fields to harvest crops the
farmers could not sell. Within a few weeks a self-help association had
been formed to give farmers labor in exchange for surplus crops, and to
swap labor with businessmen for surplus goods. The co-op members
gathered and distributed among themselves surplus vegetables, milk,
bread, gasoline, household goods, old clothing, and services. The move
ment spread with astonishing speed, and by the spring of 1933 it was
enabling more than 200,000 persons to maintain themselves. Their
central organization operated fishing boats, lumber yards, canneries,
bakeries, repair plants, and other facilities. When Federal work relief
started, the jobless largely abandoned the co-operatives though some
small-scale production co-operatives, receiving state aid, survived for a
few years. By 1939 most of them had died out.
Los Angeles next reaction to the depression was to originate pana
ceas and movements, and turn to them with a zeal that astonished the
country. Late in 1933 Upton Sinclair, the author-Socialist, announced
his candidacy for governor in his EPIC (End Poverty in California)
platform, which proposed liberal pensions for the needy, high taxes on
wealth, and a "production for use" plan of putting the unemployed to
work on idle land and in idle factories "to take the unemployed off the
backs of the taxpayers." By August there were 2,000 EPIC clubs and
a weekly paper averaging 500,000 copies ; more than a million copies of
Sinclair s leaflets were in circulation. After Sinclair was nominated
on the Democratic ticket, there broke forth one of the most furious
attacks ever leveled at an American political candidate. Sinclair was
defeated and the EPIC movement soon disintegrated.
Simultaneously with EPIC there sprang up the Utopian Society, a
secret organization whose members were initiated by "cycles." After
Sinclair s defeat the Utopian movement also died out. Technocrats
6O LOS ANGELES
flourished at about the same time, but never enlisted the wide support
of the other panacea promoters. In Long Beach Dr. Francis E. Town-
send started his transactions-tax pension scheme, and it, unlike the other
local movements, soon spread throughout the country.
THE FIFTH CITY
By 1935 Los Angeles was recovering economically. The county had
risen to fifth rank among industrial counties in the United States. More
than 140,000 workers were producing 2,300 classified products with an
annual value of more than $1,000,000,000. Los Angeles County led
the Nation in motion-picture production, oil refining, airplane manu
facture, and secondary automobile assembly. It was second in the pro
duction of tires, fourth in furniture, and fourth in women s apparel.
As in agriculture, industry was highly diversified ; there were thirty
types of industrial plants, each with an annual production volume valued
at more than $5,000,000. Production of motion pictures remained the
chief industry. All of the "big four" rubber companies Goodyear,
Goodrich, Firestone, and United States Rubber operated plants in
Los Angeles, and assembly plants were operated by General Motors,
Ford, Chrysler, Studebaker, and Willys-Overland. Los Angeles air
craft plants, newest of the industries and next to motion pictures the
largest employers of labor, turned out more than half the total value
of the Nation s airplane construction.
Education
UNTIL after the American Occupation in 1847, the Los Angeles
area had few schools. Education had no part in the coloniza
tion policies of the Spanish or Mexican governments. The
purpose in establishing the first missions was twofold. The Spanish
Crown, customary with its policy throughout New Spain, sought to
elevate the native Indians of California from a state of savagery to
that of peaceful, law-abiding, and, more particularly, tax-paying and
revenue-producing subjects. The Franciscan fathers, while in accord
with this program, were interested primarily "in saving the souls of the
unfortunate benighted heathen."
At no time during the occupancy of the Province by the Spaniards,
nor to the end of the Mexican reign in 1847, and the first period of
American occupancy, was there a well-established system of schools.
Such instruction, other than teaching the Indians to tan hides, make
soap, weave, and harvest grain, was given by orders of succeeding gov
ernors, only a few of whom were sincere in their efforts to educate the
inhabitants. But even this was spasmodic and short-lived. Not only
were the colonists, mostly of mixed blood and drawn from the humbler
ranks of Spanish colonial society, unable to read or write, but a similar
condition existed among those of the highest rank in officialdom down to
the noncommissioned officers and privates in the various presidios. The
sole school of mission days in the pueblo of Los Angeles, which had been
opened for a short time in 1817-18 by the last of the Spanish governors
but had fallen into disuse, was reopened in 1828. Governor Echeandia,
at the same time, ordered a similar school started at nearby San Gabriel
Mission. Governor Figueroa, his successor, inaugurated the first normal
school, and levied a tax to finance it. Governor Micheltorena instituted
compulsory school attendance for young children, also a school for girls.
With the American Occupation local public education really began.
Wherever he settled, the American pioneer installed "the little red
schoolhouse" and the cradle wherein modern California had its birth.
He had a full appreciation of the value bound between the covers of the
primer, grammar, and arithmetic, as the majority of his predecessors
had stressed the worth of spiritual development, contained in the doc-
tnna cristiana, to the exclusion of almost any intellectual advancement
beyond its crudely bound and well-worn pages. The first schoolmaster
\va> an army hospital steward, Dr. William B. Osborn, but the school
61
62 LOS ANGELES
was soon closed by the gold rush exodus. When the new state con
stitution made provision for a public school term of three months, Los
Angeles undertook to establish one even before the state was able to
assist financially. Francisco Bustamente, the first teacher employed by
the city council, taught reading, writing and "morals" in Spanish; and
as other teachers arrived, English, along with supplementary subjects
for which the parents paid, was added. Schools taught by private
tutors, subsidized by the city, gave way to schools financed entirely by
the city. The first of the public schools opened in 1855, an d had
separate classrooms for boys and girls. At first, the term was occa
sionally shortened by lack of money. Later, the system of fees payment
by parents was gradually eliminated by the increase in state aid for city
schools.
After state law ended public support of parochial schools, the
Catholic clergy opened a collegiate school that was the first of many
denominational institutions of higher education to be established locally
within the next few years. St. Vincent s College, the nucleus of the
present Loyola University, was opened in 1865 and received a state
charter in 1869, the year in which the University of California was
opened. A public high school was established in 1873 and the Methodist
University of Southern California in 1879. With the waves of immi
gration in the eighties and the growth of large private fortunes, sec
tarianism in education receded and new institutions of higher learning
were established with private aid and few denominational ties. In
1887 men of wealth but no particular religious bias aided Presbyterians
to found Occidental College and Congregationalists to establish Pomona
College. In 1891 Whittier College was founded by Quakers, La Verne
College by the Church of the German Baptist Brethren and the Im
maculate Heart College by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart.
The depression of the nineties hit these and other private institutions
severely, and caused them either to shut down or sharply to curtail their
operations. The state, which had been assisting the city schools to make
reasonable if less lavish progress, stepped into the breach. A Los An
geles branch of the state normal school had been opened in 1883.- Laws
were now revised to permit communities to open high schools.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the Los Angeles school
system was not only adequate but well financed. Commercial and
industrial activity, moreover, steadily increased the demand for semi-
professional training. By 1911 post-high school courses precursors to
the junior college were offered in at least one secondary school. In
1919 a Los Angeles branch of the University of California was opened,
to offer a two-year liberal curriculum in addition to courses previously
given at the local normal school. Since the end of the nineteenth cen
tury few private institutions of higher learning have been established,
EDUCATION 63
though in numerous communities of the county academies and other
private schools of various types have been opened.
The general public school system has expanded rapidly in the last
decade. In 1929 the first junior college was opened on the old campus
of the local branch of the University of California, which in that year
became the University of California at Los Angeles with a campus at
Westwood.
In 1938 there were approximately 400 public schools in the Los
Angeles school district, ranging from kindergartens to a city college.
State laws requiring minors to attend school have resulted in high school
education for nearly all the city s youth to the age of eighteen. In 1938
there were 23,047 children in kindergarten, 198,976 in 293 elementary
schools, 79,988 in 27 junior and senior high schools, and 5,197 in the
Los Angeles City College. The school plant in 1938 consisted of 931
permanent buildings and 1,647 tents, wooden bungalows, and other
temporary structures. During the period 1905-1937 inclusive, $94,-
213,000 in bonds was voted for new school buildings. In the county
there were a total of 739 public schools with an approximate enrollment
of 675,000.
The public schools of the Los Angeles school district are controlled
by a Board of Education composed of seven elected, unsalaried members.
The district today embraces a score or so of neighboring communities
and includes the western part of the county, with a population of ap
proximately 2,000,000.
The Board of Education is entirely separate from the city govern
ment, the school district being a governmental subdivision of the state.
The board has the power to levy taxes for financing the system and
manages all administrative and curricular matters, subject to state laws
and supervised by the State Superintendent of Education. A super
intendent of schools, appointed by the board, in 1939 directed the
17,000 employees, which include 11,000 class-room teachers. The 1938
annual budget was approximately $41,000,000, of which about $17,000,-
ooo came from the State.
The county Board of Education administers schools in incorporated
and unincorporated areas outside the Los Angeles school district. The
members are named by the county Board of Supervisors, which also
must approve the county school budget.
The Los Angeles school system is yet in a transition stage and suffers
from various handicaps : the conservatism of some officials and of teachers
long in the service, lack of equipment, and lar^e classes resulting from
very rapid increases in population. But the foundations of a sound
system have been laid. The schools have been largely freed from politi
cal control and many of the sounder principles of modern education
have been adopted. Serious efforts are being made to replace the tents
64 LOS ANGELES
used in more congested districts with permanent buildings, despite the
diversion of funds for replacing and repairing buildings damaged by
the 1933 earthquake. The economic depression has also slowed up
progress; funds which would have been available for plant expansion
and salaries have been used to some extent to supplement philanthropic
donations for meals, and medical and dental care for pupils whose
parents were unable adequately to provide for them. In spite of these
impediments, the ideal of the system is to train children according to
their economic and social needs and their physical and mental abilities.
Contemporary education "seeks to be as informal as living and to
achieve a successful foundation for living." Serious attempts are made
to interest children in learning and to adapt instruction methods to
their interests; in place of the old-fashioned competitive system has been
substituted one that grades the pupil on whether his ability and talents
are developing satisfactorily. Los Angeles schools also teach much that
was formerly acquired at home home-making, physical development,
and social responsibilities and relations.
Public education in Los Angeles now begins very early. Starting in
nursery schools and kindergartens, in the early grades there is directed
play and the children are made acquainted with such everyday subjects
as printing and gardening; at an early stage girls have the same oppor
tunities as boys to learn about the world. In early grades girls may
design dresses, but in later grades they join the boys in discussing current
civic problems and local politics, and in visiting tire, airplane, and other
factories to learn industrial problems and processes. In junior and
senior high schools education is adapted to the needs of the students; a
school in a district where few go on to college offers trade and agri
cultural training in place of the classics, dramatics, or highly specialized
"majors" taught in a Hollywood school. There are also special voca
tional schools and schools for the mentally and physically handicapped.
Adult education in Los Angeles is not based on general theory but
upon local needs and desires. Except among those seeking high school
or junior college diplomas, there is little attention to terms and credits.
That these educational facilities are appreciated is attested by the enroll
ment in 1938 of around 200,000 persons in adult classes at the 24
evening schools maintained by the Board of Education and in 12 similar
schools maintained with Federal aid. Day classes are attended by
15,000 persons, mostly women.
The courses are highly diversified: elementary subjects are offered
for those who desire them. Americanization courses for aliens seeking
citizenship, college preparatory and other high school work, and numer
ous special courses ranging from those teaching short story writing to
those giving the theory and practice in automobile repairing. The
courses in the evening schools are adapted to the needs of the com-
EDUCATION 65
munities where they are held; the schools in Van Nuys, Gardena, Bell,
and other rural areas stress agricultural training; Huntington Park and
San Pedro emphasize mechanical and trade subjects; Hollywood and
Los Angeles offer a general educational program, including art, litera
ture, public speaking, commercial subjects, trade instruction, and college
preparatory work. Vocational training, the largest field, is particularly
stressed in such places as the Frank Wiggins Trade School.
The Adult Education Program employs several hundred teachers
under WPA in conjunction with the Adult Evening College at City
College. In 1938, 150 courses were offered, as well as classes in numer
ous evening schools and in nearly 50 welfare and community and church
centers. The curriculum is similar to that of the regular evening
schools.
The number of private schools has greatly increased since 1910;
there were at least fifty in the Los Angeles area in 1939. Their curric
ula are similar to that of the public schools, except for specialization in
subjects such as music, arts and crafts, languages, or physical education
emphasized by the founders. The private institutions range from ele
mentary to college preparatory schools and most of them, excluding a
few boys military academies and girls preparatory schools, are coeduca
tional. The private schools in Los Angeles, like those in other parts of
the country, have the advantages of greater financial resources. Their
affluence enables them to maintain more instructors for smaller student
bodies, a ratio often as low as one teacher for every three students.
The high fees tend to draw only children from well-to-do families, and
most of the schools are relatively exclusive.
Despite the fact that many of the private schools were semi-religious
in origin, almost the only ones now identified with denominations other
than Catholic are the Berkeley Hall School, which since 1911 has con
ducted its education in line with Christian Science beliefs; Pasadena
College, operated by the Church of the Nazarene since 1902, Los
Angeles Pacific College, founded in 1903 by the Free Methodist Church,
Whittier College, founded (1891) by the Society of Friends, and the
Harvard School, an Episcopal institution. Educators have established
the John Dewey School, the Sherwood Progressive School, and the
Progressive School of Los Angeles, the last of which has a co-operative
management and provides scholarships for needier pupils. These pro
gressive schools, incorporating the progressive educational ideas of John
Dewey of Columbia University, are rather similar to the Ethical Cul
ture School of New York. Among the larger private schools, the
Chouinard Art Institute offers training in painting and allied subjects.
The Otis Art Institute offers a two- to four-year course in drawing,
painting, sculpture, illustrative and commercial design, and stagecraft.
It also offers, with county aid, a tree museum education for 500 children.
66 LOS ANGELES
In the foreign districts are a few schools offering instruction in the
language, religion, and culture of their homelands; these are usually
maintained by the residents of the districts or by their religious groups.
Segregation of Negroes and Orientals was officially abolished in the
i88o s by the public school system. In 1939 Los Angeles voters elected
a Negro music teacher to the Board of Education.
The Roman Catholic Church today conducts nearly 100 schools,
with 20,000 students, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and San Diego.
Besides elementary schools, there are about a dozen secondary schools
including Cathedral, Loyola and the Catholic Girls high schools and
Loyola University. Protestants conduct only the traditional Sunday
school, but many Jewish synagogues conduct schools where children,
after finishing their day at public school, are taught Hebrew and racial
history and tradition.
The increase of higher education in southern California, because of
the length of schooling required by law and the proximity of tax-sup
ported institutions for advanced education, was intensified during the
depression. Many parents preferred to keep their children in school
rather than have them sitting about jobless or seeking in vain for em
ployment. More than 14,000 were enrolled in 1937-38 in a dozen
junior colleges in the vicinity. In 1938 the number of freshmen
enrolling at the city s junior college alone was nearly a third of the
number graduated from city high schools at the end of the preceding
term. In the colleges and universities near Los Angeles were approxi
mately 30,000 students in 1938-39.
Ranking high in scholastic standards is the University of California
at Los Angeles, with a 1939 enrollment of 7,729. The university also
has a large extension division. The University of Southern California,
second oldest institution of higher learning in the city, has 24 colleges
and schools whose enrollment, including that in extension courses, was
16,929 for the 1939-40 sessions, second largest in the West.
The group of colleges at Claremont has adopted the English system
of co-ordinate colleges, federated for common purposes but autonomous
in their unit life. Included in the group are Pomona College, Scripps
College for Women, and the Claremont Colleges of graduate study.
The California Institute of Technology at Pasadena is a scientific and
technical school. Occidental, Redlands, Whittier and a dozen other
smaller colleges offer standard college work.
xxxxxxxxxxx,
XXXVSXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXdkXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
<Cxxxxxxxxxx<xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx*rxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Religi(
ion
THE multiplicity and diversity of faiths that flourish in the aptly
named City of the Angels probably cannot be duplicated in any
other city on earth. With churches and meeting houses of all
the major Christian denominations and many of the minor ones, with
Jewish and non-Christian temples and shrines, Los Angeles is also the
birthplace and headquarters of several denominations of her own. These
include such denominations as Aimee Semple McPherson s International
Foursquare Gospel Evangelism, the Church of the Nazarene, the
Hebrew Evangelization Society, the Christian Fundamentals league,
and others which have come into being here.
This profusion of denominations is particularly striking in view of
the fact that not only was Los Angeles founded on and by Catholicism,
but that faith prevailed all through the Spanish and Mexican periods
of the city s history when all beliefs except those of the Roman Catholic
Church were discouraged. Even after the Yankee influx in the mid-
nineteenth century when the field was thrown open to all denomina
tions, other religious groups appeared slowly.
The Franciscan missionaries directed by Father Junipero Serra, who
arrived in 1769 to Christianize the California Indians, found that the
natives of this region already worshiped only one God, Quao-ar (some
times spelled Kwawar). So feared was this deity by the natives that
the tribesmen spoke his name only during religious ceremonies, which
consisted of songs and dances conducted by medicine men in special
open-air enclosures. For the conversion of these aborigines, the padres
established a chain of missions extending northward from San Diego.
When Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish government as a
colonizing venture in 1781, priests from near-by San Gabriel Mission
blessed the site. It was not until three years later, however, that a
house of worship was provided for the pueblo and in the interim it
was necessary for the citizens of the newly born Los Angeles to journey
MI Gabriel, a distance of nine miles, in order to attend Mass. In
1784, a tiny adobe, predecessor to the present Church of Our Lady the
Queen of the Angelx was erected to the northwest of the present struc
ture, and a padre came from San Gabriel to officiate. Today more
than a thousand houses of worship are supported by groups of almost
every -hade of religious belief.
1 rom the first the Roman Catholic Church played an important
67
68 LOS ANGELES
part in the life of the growing community, since all the white inhabi
tants were of Latin descent and had been brought up in it. For years
civic life revolved around the church on the Plaza. The supremacy
of the beliefs and teachings of the padres survived the revolution which
freed Mexico and her California possessions from Spain, and continued
to a large extent even after secularization of the missions in 1834.
Among the few of other faiths who persisted in efforts to introduce
a new order in the Los Angeles early-day religious scene was William
Money. It was Money who founded the Reformed New Testament
Church of the Faith of Jesus Christ, the first of Los Angeles meta
physical cults. His preaching attracted not only a few Yankees but
some native Californians as well, and while he never endangered Cath
olic supremacy, his group remained active for a number of years.
Catholic activities continued to center around the Plaza Church, its
affairs being directed by the California Mission System as a part of the
territory of the Diocese of Sonora, Mexico, until the year 1840 when
the Diocese of both "Californias" was established. Early in the 1870*5,
the magnificent Cathedral of St. Vibiana was projected, and the fine
structure at Second and Main Streets was completed in 1876, where
upon Catholic headquarters were installed in the new cathedral, the
first to be built in Los Angeles. In 1936, an archbishopric was created
comprising the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Santa Barbara, and
Ventura, a territory of 9,508 square miles. Today there are 90 Catho
lic churches within the Los Angeles city limits, and 57 additional houses
of worship of that faith spread over the county. Communicants in the
city number 225,000 and in the entire county 317,000.
Protestantism made a poor start in Southern California and it was
late in the 1 850*5 before any appreciable foothold was gained. Its rise
was rapid during the latter part of the century, and startling gains have
been registered during the present century. Even though American rule
granted religious freedom, few in Los Angeles took advantage of the
new rule for almost twenty years. This was largely due to the geo
graphical isolation of Southern California, high mountains and vast
deserts discouraging immigration from the East. The relatively few
Americans who braved the hardships of the overland trip or the long
voyage around the Horn were hardbitten frontiersmen, traders, miners,
and the adventurers types giving little thought to religion. It was
during this period, too, when Los Angeles gained the rather unenviable
reputation of being anything but the "City of the Angels."
Into this unpromising pasture, itinerant Protestant ministers with
hopes of gathering flocks began drifting, early in the fifties. Among
them. was the Reverend James W. Brier, a survivor of the Jayhawker
party, which defied advice of old-timers and took a short cut across what
they named Death Valley to reach the coast. Brier in 1850 preached
RELIGION 69
the first Methodist sermon in Los Angeles to a congregation consisting
of his own family and Mayor John G. Nichols.
The next assault was made three years later by another Methodist,
the Reverend Adam Bland, who at first preached to three persons, in
cluding his wife and daughter. After a few months Bland had built
up a slightly larger congregation and started a school, but eventually
he decided Los Angeles was a hopeless field, and departed.
In the same year (1853) the Reverend John A. Freeman delivered
the first Baptist sermon, and left almost immediately for El Monte,
where his church became for a time the only meeting place for the
Protestants of the Los Angeles area.
In 1854, a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend James Wood, began
to conduct services in a carpenter shop on Main Street ; after about a
year he departed because of failing health. A more successful Presby
terian was the Reverend William E. Boardman, whose arrival in 1859
elicited from the Los Angeles Star the wistful comment : "We hope he
will be enabled to organize a congregation." Boardman gathered
around him a Protestant group of various denominations and had erected
the walls and roof of a meetinghouse when subscriptions for the build
ing began to dwindle because of the Civil War currency inflation.
After three years he, too, gave up and for a number of years there was
not a single Protestant clergyman in the city.
While early non-Catholics long failed to unite, the Jews were hold
ing services within a decade after California became a part of the United
States. Joseph P. Newmark, a business man \vho was also an ordained
rabbi, held the first service in the rear room of "Don Juan" Temple s
adobe in 1854. The congregation, named B nai B rith, was taken over
by Rabbi A. W. Edelman in 1862, and regular services have been con
ducted ever since.
It was 1865 before the first permanent Protestant congregation was
organized. This pioneer congregation was of a nature not usually early
represented on the western frontier the Protestant Episcopal. An
Episcopal bishop, William Ingraham Kip, had visited Los Angeles ten
years earlier, and decided it was useless to attempt to establish a church
there. He had observed that the Protestant clergymen were often un
popular with Angelenos because the ministers preached on "Nebraska or
Kansas, slavery or antislavery," and other partisan secular issues of
the day.
Nevertheless, these earlier Protestant clergymen had helped to pave
the way for the Episcopalians. In 1864, a group of Los Angeles citi
zens, remnants of the earlier congregations, appealed to the Episcopal
Diocese in San Francisco, pleading that "The Americans here are left
a life of simple heathenism ... It is pitiable to think that if a Protes
tant dies here, he must be buried like a dog; that an infant can never
7O LOS ANGELES
be baptized, and that a Justice of the Peace is the only authority to
whom a couple can go to be married." In response to this plea, the
Reverend Elias Birdsall was sent to Los Angeles to establish, in 1865,
St. Athanasius Church.
That the going at first was no easier for Birdsall than for his prede
cessors is indicated in a newspaper editorial of 1865, referring to the
situation among the Protestants: "It is a burning shame . . . that
Los Angeles cannot boast of a full and thorough-going congregation
who can spend one hour each Sabbath from the busy life, without
being drummed up by handbill or some other method-extraordinary to
hear an able and eloquent discourse." Nevertheless, Birdsall gradually
built up a congregation, and before long other Protestant denomina
tions were established, among them the Congregationalists (1867), the
Methodists (1868), and the African Methodists.
With the beginning of the seventies, Los Angeles changed rapidly
from a virtually barren Protestant religious field to a luxuriant pasture
for any and all beliefs. The construction of the railroads brought thou
sands of new residents to the West, and scores of new creeds. Churches
as well as real-estate subdivisions mushroomed all over town; no less
than forty were erected in the booming eighties and many more in the
nineties. With Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Baptists came the Chris
tian Scientists and Mormons. The first Scientist church in Los Angeles
received its charter in May of 1898, and the first edifice was erected
at 1366 South Alvarado Street shortly thereafter. The Mormons
(Latter-day Saints) organized in the Los Angeles territory in 1892,
following a period of successful missionary work extending over the
entire State. However, it was not until 1923 that Stakes (dioceses)
were organized; the church has enjoyed a steady growth since that
time. The Hollywood Stake by 1930 contained ten organized bishop s
Wards with several branches. It was during the latter part of the past
century, too, that the Japanese and Chinese built temples, not only for
the practice of their native faiths but also for Christian worship under
American leadership. In the early 1900*5, Los Angeles could boast of
231 church organizations with 220 of them reporting a total member
ship of 81,371.
Development of the Los Angeles religious field continued all through
the first two decades of the twentieth century, but it was during the
prosperous period immediately following the World War that, nour
ished by a steady stream of newcomers, religion burst into full and
spectacular bloom. Many of the new settlers had means, leisure, and
inclination to indulge in extensive church activities. A great number,
transferring their membership from churches in their former homes to
those of the same denomination in Los Angeles, bolstered the local
fundamentalist movements.
RELIGION 71
Others joined some of the newer and more sensational organiza
tions such as the Four Square Gospel, founded by Aimee Semple Mc-
Pherson in 1923. The establishment of her Angelus Temple and its
subsequent growth, coupled with the theatrical nature of her services,
furnished Los Angeles with its greatest demonstration of the spectacular
in religion. Thousands flocked to her banner, and records indicate that
more than 40,000 persons have been immersed in Angelus Temple s
baptistry. In addition to the $2,000,000 temple with its radio broad
casting station, a Bible college, some 400 branch churches, and 178 mis
sion stations in other parts of the world are supported.
It was during this post-war period, too, that Los Angeles was over
run by religious fakers of various types. The epidemic spread and
assumed such proportions that legislation curbing their practices re
sulted, and soothsayers, fortune tellers, and swamis were forced to
operate under license. The cosmopolitan populace of Los Angeles be
came known far and wide for its susceptibility to the teachings of sects
and cults embracing such philosophies as divine healing, occult science,
spiritual and mental phenomena, reincarnation, and astrological revela
tions. Herbert W. Schneider of Columbia University, New York,
declared a few years ago that every existing religion in the world was
represented by branches in Los Angles County.
In 1940, the religious scene is a continuation of that of the twenties
and thirties. Orthodox creeds prosper side by side with numerous
fanatical movements. There are rites and philosophies to suit all tastes.
There are esoteric churches lighted with neon signs depicting soul and
astral evolutions; schools of astrology, numerology, divine science, and
psychic and occult law r s conduct classes for members, and ordain their
own ministers.
Despite this multiplicity of religious groups, the Roman Catholics,
the larger Protestant groups, and the Jewish congregations continue to
flourish; their memberships have increased enormously during the past
decade. Nearly all the orthodox churches are supported in part by the
many transients. With the increase in membership has come the con
stant erection of new church edifices. Today there are 1,833 houses of
worship spread over the city and county, and 81 missions, 134 religious
institutions, and 67 reading rooms. In addition to the Roman Catholic
Church with its 147 houses of worship, the 10 leading Protestant de
nominations support 836 churches. With the Methodist Church lead
ing with 189 churches, there are 165 Baptist, 108 Presbyterian, 83
Christian Science, 80 Lutheran, 57 Jewish, 50 Seventh-day Adventist,
40 Protestant Episcopal, 37 Church of Christ and 27 Latter-day Saints
houses of worship.
The extent of the current church activities is shown by the social
welhfrc programs that are carried on by virtually all groups and that
72 LOS ANGELES
embrace nearly every department of social work: the Catholic Wel
fare Bureau maintains a club for transient boys, a maternity home for
unmarried mothers, and numerous other agencies; the Methodists oper
ate the large clinic of the Church of All Nations Foundation, and the
Goodwill Industries, which supply employment; the Episcopal Church
is active in neighborhood group and hospital work and maintains the
Episcopal City Mission ; Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and
members of other leading denominations, working individually and also
through church organizations, carry on Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. activi
ties, and "social action" programs to foster principles of racial equality,
social security, and so on.
Important social service work among the Negroes has been instituted
by the People s Independent Church of Christ.
Angelus Temple, unlike most of the other fundamentalist organiza
tions, has a free commissary for the indigent; the Jews, who in 1854
founded the city s first charitable organization, the Hebrew Benevolent
Society, now support the extensive Federation of Jewish Welfare Or
ganizations, whose thirteen agencies include Cedars of Lebanon Hos
pital, the Jewish Loan Fund, and a modern orphanage.
In Los Angeles today, such religious groups, together with the less
eccentric unorthodox groups, form a dignified background against which
the fantastic stands out in garish high lights.
Architecture
Ik
I iktori on Pribosic
LOS ANGELES COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL
Burton O. Burt
LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY
Bertram Good hue, Architect
I nh ersity of Southern California
MUDD MEMORIAL HALL OF PHILOSOPHY,
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Julius Schulman
McALMON RESIDENCE, LOS ANGELES
K. M. Schindlcr, Architect
BLUE AND SILVER HOUSE,"
THE RESIDENCE OF JOBYNA HOWLAND BEVERLY HILLS
Julius Schultnan Lloyd Wright, Architect
Thomas and K itch el
A PALM SPRINGS RESIDENCE
Honnold and Russell, Architects
V. D. L. RESEARCH HOUSE, LOS ANGELES
HOME OF RICHARD J. NEUTRA, ARCHITECT
Liickhaiis Studio
i!T
F. E. Dunham: U. S. Forest Service
FEDERAL BUILDING AND POST OFFICE, LOS ANGELES
G. Stanley Underwood, Architect
COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM STUDIOS, HOLLYWOOD
William Lescaze, Architect Columbia Broadcasting System
.
: ...
it; n n n n u
s
i r
n
5 i
i
i
i
5
1 in
Edison Company
KDISON BUILDING, LOS ANGELES
Allison and Allison, Architects
George D.Haiyht
A SIERRA MADRE RESIDENCE OF BATTEN CONSTRUCTION
Graham Latta, Architect
AN ALTADENA RESIDENCE (MONTEREY STYLE)
Geonjc D. Haiyht H. Roy Kelley, Architect
The Movies
ENG before Hollywood stirred from its pastoral quiet, the slopes
of Edendale, a few miles to the east, were loud with the antics of
actors who doubled as roustabouts or carpenters and did their own
laundry. On the lots facing that part of Alessandro Street later re
named Glendale Boulevard people from the garment trade spouted
through megaphones and "made up" stories as they went along, goad
ing themselves and their players to commit artistic felonies. Picture
making went on in whirlwind haste, and without formality cowboys
chased Indians, cops chased robbers, and robbers chased misfit cops.
Here, between November, 1909, and July, 1910, Director Charles K.
French ground out 185 films for the Bison Company, a firm that took
its trademark, a rampant buffalo, from the design on the back of a ten
dollar bill. ("If it s good enough for Uncle Sam," they said, "it s
good enough for us!") G. M. Anderson (Max Aronson billed as
"Broncho Billy") blazed his way from one finished film to another with
such dispatch that his six-guns never had time to cool. The first actor-
author-producer, and the first of the hard-riding western heroes who
feared and detested horses, Anderson produced a picture a week for
376 successive weeks, an all-time record.
Edendale lots were dotted with flimsy prop saloons and ranch house
interiors, hapazard structures that frequently toppled over while the
camera was grinding. When a cave-in occurred, the players scurried
from under, or if they were rugged braced themselves and stood firm
beneath the falling walls, never ceasing their exaggerated pantomime.
The director, eager for action, often included the accidental col
lapse as part of the plot. It was in Edendale that the Keystone cops
came to fame, as did Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Fred Mace, and
Fatty Arbuckle; and here Mack Sennett, their director-boss, intro
duced to the movies the bathing beauty and the custard pie smash.
California had been claimed for the movies in the autumn of 1908
when Francis Boggs, star of the stage melodrama, Jf hy Girls Leave
Home, came to Los Angeles to direct the final scenes of a single-reeler,
The Count of Monte Cristo, begun in Chicago by William N. Selig,
one of the earliest commercial movie makers. Boggs and his cameraman,
Thomas Persons, finished the film at Laguna Beach with a cast totally
different from the one that appeared in the opening scenes. Months
later they built the first motion-picture studio in Los Angeles, a lean-to
73
74 LOS ANGELES
of frail boards and canvas sets on a lot behind a Chinese laundry on
Olive Street near Seventh.
Meanwhile in the East the movies were engaged in a hurly-burly
of suits and injunctions, raids and riots. Since 1897 Thomas Alva
Edison had been suing the independent producers for patent infringe
ment. As the "flickers" supplanted shooting galleries and penny arcades
in popularity, the producers licensed by Edison entered into an alliance
to safeguard their claims to film profits. In 1909 they formed the
Motion Picture Patents Company, soon widely known as the "movie
trust." It included all of the country s more stable movie makers, and
a few of the pirates who managed to turn "legitimate" : Edison s Vita-
graph, Lubin, Selig, Essanay, Kalem, Pathe and Melies. Biograph,
bluffing its way, refused to affiliate until later when it was able to dictate
its own terms.
The trust s monopoly was threatened, however, by a group of small
producers and exhibitors who, having been excluded from the pact, began
to construct or import bootleg equipment to film their pictures in ob
scure hide-outs. Against these independents the trust waged one of the
most vigorous battles in the history of American industrialism. The
pirates fled from cellar to garret, to roof; from New York to Florida,
to Cuba, and finally to California, where the scenery of any part of the
world could be easily simulated, and where the climate permitted out
door picture making in all seasons.
Trust companies, attracted by the same climate and topography,
speedily followed the independents to southern California. They opened
studios, pirates and trust alike, in Edendale, and to a lesser extent in
Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Culver City, and Glendale. Not until
Edendale became overcrowded did producers begin to move westward
through the low rolling hills to Hollywood, where David Horsley s
Nestor Film Company had paused in 1911 to make Hollywood s first
motion picture in a studio at Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.
The trust, as it settled in California, formed a new battlefront in its
war with the independents, but this time the pirates stood their ground
and fought back. And as the independents began to get a firmer foot
hold, the movies started on their slow and painful struggle to grow up.
Maurice Costello, one of the screen s first idols, started the actors on
the way to a new independence by declaring that he would no longer
help carpenters hammer new sets together; presently Mack Sennett had
reached such heights that he felt justified in asking his employers for an
office bathtub eight feet long, six feet wide, and drawing five feet of
water. More and more movie producers were inclined to remove their
hats at the dinner table; Biograph began calling its film processing fac
tory a laboratory; Essanay paid $25 in a contest for the term "photo-
THE MOVIES 75
play" to replace the term "movies," which nevertheless remained the
people s choice.
The Selig lot was walled to shield the players from lookers-on who
were accustomed to shouting comments and criticisms. Fred Karno s
English pantomime company came to town, and left without its head-
liner, Charlie Chaplin. Famous Players began production in 1912,
bringing together Cecil B. De Mille, Jesse Lasky, and Samuel Goldwyn,
and a year later Hal Roach made his first film.
In spite of the industry s sudden flair for all things grandiloquent,
a new creative craftsmanship began to evolve through the resourceful
ness and superior showmanship of the outlaw producers. Carl Laemmle,
a onetime clothing dealer, founded the Independent Motion Pic
ture Company known as the "Imp" and here the "star" system was
introduced. Laemmle invaded the Biograph lot and for $125 a week
hired Gladys Smith, "the little girl with the curls," whom he elevated
to stardom under the name of Mary Pickford in Their First Misunder
standing, directed by Thomas H. Ince, with Owen Moore as leading
man. Having lured the trust s greatest potential money maker,
Laemmle taunted the licensed producers with a series of blatant ad
vertisements: "Little Mary Is Now An Imp!"
Another of the pirates innovations was the introduction of the
"feature" picture a film of more than one or two reels. The first of
these, Queen Elizabeth, made in France by Louis Mercanton with
Sarah Bernhardt and Lou Tellegen, had been imported in 1911 by a
onetime furrier, Adolph Zukor, who spurred American producers to the
development of picture drama in the grand manner. Within a few
years came other films that are remembered today with respect : David
\Vark Griffith s Intolerance, which introduced parallel, or "cut-back,"
story telling, and Broken Blossoms, with Richard Barthelmess; Tillie s
Punctured Romance, directed by Mack Sennett, with Marie Dressier
and Charlie Chaplin; Lubitsch s Carmen, starring Pola Negri; The
Squawman, and Chaplin s A Dog s Life. In America s first super-fea
ture, The Birth of a Nation, Griffith revolutionized screen technique,
creating a picture which critics viewed in terms of art. Based on a story
by the Reverend Thomas Dixon called The Clansman, the picture
opened at Clune s Auditorium in Los Angeles, February 8, 1915, and
a month later, with greater assurance (and at two dollars a seat), it had
its first showing in New York, where it rolled up an astounding box-
office record.
Throughout this period, the trust companies languished, dwindling
into oblivion because of their persistent mass production of outmoded
short films. The pirates, once hounded across the continent, now set
the pace in a new direction and began to dominate the industry
though, even as late as 1925, the movie trust maintained a New York
76 LOS ANGELES
office where their agents dictated blistering letters in a vain effort to
collect the license fees that had been carried on the books for more than
two decades.
As the twentieth century grew into its teens, the film-going public
began to demand not only feature productions, but stars, stars, stars.
Up in marquee lights went such names as John Bunny and Flora Finch,
Lottie Brisco, Grace Cunard, Helen Holmes, Arthur Johnson, Mar
guerite Clark, Blanche Sweet, Tom Mix, Anita Stewart, Earle Wil
liams, William S. Hart, Charles Ray, Norma and Constance Talmadge,
Wallace Reid, Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, and the Gish sisters. An-
gelenos, who had loitered in the old days around the Biograph lot, re
member the Gishes : how Dorothy wore a pink ribbon and Lillian wore
blue, so that Griffith, their director, could tell them apart.
Casting was carried on in the bar of the Alexandria Hotel, down
town, at Fifth and Spring Streets. Five o clock was the recognized hour
for cocktails, baked ham in hot rolls, and the allocation of parts in new
productions. Every unemployed actor in town made for the Alexandria
and tried to catch a director s eye with a bit of business they talked
and lived pictures, and the world beyond did not exist for the men and
women of shadowland.
The years from 1912 to 1920 brought few radical changes in
mechanical methods of movie making though cameramen perfected the
dissolve, the fade, the double exposure, and the close-up but the World
War, ending the competition of European film companies, left the huge
and growing world market to American producers. Lewis J. Selznick,
brimming with good will inspired by new business, could condescend to
pleasantries w T ith Nicholas, the recently deposed Little Father of all the
Russias. In the fabulous tradition, Selznick in 1917 dispatched a cable
gram to the former Czar: "When I was poor boy in Kiev some of your
policemen were not kind to me and my people. I came to America and
prospered. Now hear with regret you are out of a job there. Feel no
ill will what your policemen did, so if you will come New York can
give you fine position acting in pictures. Salary no object. Reply my
expense. Regards you and family."
Never again could an actress like Mrs. Patrick Campbell, favorite
of British Shavian audiences, cross the sea and a continent to go slum
ming in Hollywood: to hoist an eyebrow, as she did when meeting
Harold Lloyd, with the query: "And you, my good man, tell me, are
you employed on the films?" Hollywood actors, knee-deep in butlers,
had ideas of their own. Just as their forebears had broken away from
the studio carpenters, so did Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks, and Griffith
break with the producers. In 1919 they organized United Artists,
assuming complete control of the process of making their own pictures,
THE MOVIES 77
and prompting Richard Rowland, head of rival Metro films, to lament
that the "lunatics have taken charge of the asylum!"
During these years the movies expanded in still another direction:
the ownership of theatres. Chains were organized and battles fought
for the control of first-run houses. In an effort to eliminate competi
tion, producers bought hundreds of legitimate theatres and either dis
mantled them or remodeled them for exhibition of their own films.
The general extravagance required money. Money required bankers.
Bankers demanded a voice in the industry s affairs. And so it happened
that such onetime independents as Adolph Zukor, Carl Laemmle, Wil
liam Fox, and Samuel Goldwyn found themselves taking orders from
Wall Street. By 1936 the major film companies Paramount, Loew s
(Metro-Goldwyn-Muyer), Universal, United Artists, Warner Broth
ers, 2Oth Century-Fox, Columbia, and R.K.O. traced their ownership
through the Electrical Research Products, Inc., the Western Electric
Company, and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, to the
House of Morgan; or, through the Radio Corporation of America and
The Chase National Bank, to the Rockefeller interests.
To meet the new order and to better working conditions the cinema
workers began extensive organization in trade unions, and the Motion
Picture Producers Association fought back. In an industry generally as
sociated with fabulous money and great generosity, wages became unbe
lievably low. Average annual technicians earnings, which in 1929
were $2,463, had dropped by 1935 to $1,767, while in 1937 studio
painters, carpenters, and plasterers were averaging $1,500 a year.
Members of these crafts worked fewer than 65 per cent of the year s
working days in 1937, an d not more than 20 per cent had steady em
ployment, while five of the film companies (Loew s, Columbia, Para
mount, 2Oth Century-Fox, and Warner s) reported a 25 per cent in
crease in profits.
Even the "quickie" producers of "Poverty Row" had junked the
helter-skelter production in which carpenters doubled as gladiators, lead
ing ladies made their own costumes, and one man might finance, write,
direct, cut, and sell a motion picture film. The movies that reach first-
run houses today are produced by a streamlined process in which all
efforts are highly organized and specialized.
After the successful talkie revolution (it began in 1927 with The
Jazz Singer when Al Jolson strode to the piano and words came
to life on his lips: "Say, Ma, listen to this!"), movie producers under
took to experiment with new possibilities in color pictures, though the
use of color remains restricted because of the extremely high cost. The
Technicolor Corporation holds a virtual monopoly on patents, and con
trols use of the color process, (by leasing the $15,000 color cameras and
selling), developing, and printing color film. Walt Disney, the most
78 LOS ANGELES
outstanding artist in the development of the animated cartoon, con
tracted with the corporation in 1934 to make his Mickey Mouse and
Silly Symphony cartoons in color, beginning work the same year on his
first full-length feature production, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The social and artistic significance of motion pictures has increasingly
concerned educators, church groups, women s clubs, and critics of Amer
ican life. Though the average weekly attendance of 75 million gives
the movies an influence equalled only by newspapers and radio, the
artists whose creative efforts go into picture making have long felt
hampered by the fact that, as Walter Wanger expressed it, "any mi
nority, any individual, any rag, any nation could dictate to us." In
July, 1938, a distributors boycott of Blockade crystallized their dis
content. At a meeting of 300 delegates, representing 150,000 members
of motion-picture unions, guilds, and other organizations, these artists
demanded that "gag rule" be removed from the industry, so that motion
pictures might become "a very important pillar in the democratic struc
ture."
When the producers themselves, back in the early 1920*5, feared a
nation-wide boycott because of the cycle of sex and crime films, and the
public outcry at the scandals unearthed in stars private lives, the in
dustry forestalled the pressure groups by forming the Motion Picture
Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. With Will Hays as its
head at a salary of $100,000 a year the industry began a climb toward
public confidence.
Realists in business and politics, the major producers balked at a
realistic treatment of any theme in films. Some producers, believing
that audiences sought only to forget their troubles, gave them farces,
ranging from the mild to the screwball, with a standard rotation of boy-
meets-girl inanities, followed by a cycle of boy-slaps-girl. Another
school of producers became aware of a plea, grown more insistent in
American life, for realism, and even the most romantic pictures began
to achieve greater fidelity to essential truth and significance of theme.
Gradually, out of this approach to truth-telling, came such films as I
Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Of Human Bondage, Dead End,
The Informer, The Life of Emile Zola, Stage Coach, Juarez, and Con
fessions of a Nazi Spy.
MAKING A MOVIE
"If one goes to the root of the matter," the playwright and screen
writer Sidney Howard said, "motion pictures are neither written nor
acted, but made." A glance around any of the walled towns that are
today s major picture lots bears out Howard s statement. They are
dominated by massive sound stages with unwavering lines and unorna-
THE MOVIES 79
mented surfaces characteristic of modern industrial design. In large
administration buildings file clerks, stenographers, and all the other
clerical employees of a modern factory s "front office" labor over books
and bills. In laboratories scientists experiment with schemes to speed
up production, and in other buildings technical experts operate delicate
processing machines of baffling intricacy. The major studio lot con
tains machine and printing shops, a foundry and a metal works. If the
picturesque sets and oddly dressed actors are disregarded the studio
is a huge manufacturing plant: on a major lot from 1,000 to 3,OOO
workers representing approximately 275 crafts methodically pursue the
business of making motion pictures.
The head of a motion-picture studio is usually called the head pro
ducer. But the word producer is a much overworked term. Cecil B.
de Mille, Samuel Goldwyn, and Frank Capra are also producers in the
highest sense of the word; they have a financial interest in the produc
tions they make and are responsible for their success or failure. Of such
bonafide producers as these, Hollywood contains not more than a dozen.
In charge of most of the pictures made in Hollywood are so-called asso
ciate producers men of less authority and power who nevertheless are
the top supervisors of most Hollywood movie productions.
Though the head producer is the top official in the studio, he is not
all powerful. The major studio corporations are controlled by financial
interests largely in New York City, and it is to the eastern corpora
tion officials that he must cock an ear for basic instructions. Besides
determining how much money will be available in a given year, New
York" takes a hand in apportioning this money among the various pro
posed productions and thereby becomes an influence in the shaping of
studio policy. In conferences between the production head and the
eastern owners, funds are allotted to pictures of four definite types:
"A" pictures, based on a current best-selling novel or popular play, the
studio s most ambitious undertakings; "A" productions that are not out
standing but that nevertheless contain the studio s stars; "B" pictures
which use feature players rather than stars, and a sprinkling of minor
contract players and "unknowns"; and short subjects and cartoons,
which most of the studios in 1939 had come to consider an important
item in their production schedules. The most ambitious "A" pictures
are the movies biggest gamble. Production costs range from $250,000
to $2,000,000 or $3,000,000, but a profit is never certain. The time
taken in making such a picture averages between two and three months.
"B" pictures are produced on budgets which seldom exceed $250,000
and usually average between $125,000 and $150,000. With fewer stars
to offer the box office, "B" pictures depend on catchy, fresh treatments,
and plots paralleling events of public interest. These pictures are block-
booked, or pre-sold, sometimes a year in advance of production. The
8O LOS ANGELES
time consumed in production ranges from twelve to twenty days. On
"Poverty Row," a short section of Sunset Boulevard near Gower Street,
"quickies" are produced at the rate of two or three a week, but these
hastily concocted dishes are strictly for "grind" houses and the more
backward country regions.
Responsible to the head producer and working closely with him are
a corps of field generals numbering eight or ten in the larger studios,
that includes the story editor, the man in charge of writers, the produc
tion manager (in charge of the studio s real properties and all its tan
gible assets), and a group of individual or associate producers. As a
rule, this staff in joint conference fixes production schedules and budgets
for specific productions, sets shooting dates, assigns directors insofar as
feasible, and, through swaps or new contracts, maintains the studio s
star list at the level it considers advisable. The producer s job is part
art and part business. He is responsible for the success of the pictures
with which his name is bracketed, and is usually compensated on a per
centage basis. He passes judgment on stories, selects writers, directors,
and actors. He must consult with artists on costumes and sets, and
with musicians concerning scores. At the same time, he must watch the
clock, and keep costs within previously set limits.
The director s job is, of course, primarily artistic, but he shares with
the associate producer the task of co-ordinating talent and temperament,
and he must likewise bear in mind the restrictions of time and budget
allowance. In most cases, to insure harmony between script and direc
tion, the director works with producer and writers while the script is
taking shape. Sometimes, however, a director is not called in until the
screen play assumes its final form, in which case in all probability he
will want it completely rewritten to fit his ideas. Preparation, shoot
ing, and editing are the three steps in the production of a motion picture,
but many studio departments function simultaneously. Some depart
ments are at work only during the preparatory period; others enter and
leave, only to re-enter again when their functions are required. Further
more, there are no set routines in picture making. Every studio has its
own production methods and different pictures call for different rou
tines.
Nevertheless, almost all pictures commence with a search for a story.
Hunting stories is the continuous business of the story department, and
is regarded as difficult. Every story department contains staffs of
readers in Hollywood, sometimes numbering as many as a dozen, and
in New York. These readers comb books, plays, and magazines for
stories with visual interest and plots abundant in situations readily
translatable into action. It is the custom now in most story depart
ments to issue a weekly bulletin compiled from synopses of stories read
in Hollywood and New York. These bulletins are sent to all associate
THE MOVIES 8l
producers, and when a producer sees a synopsis that appeals to him he
puts in a claim for it. If it is okehed by the studio head, it is purchased
and he starts to work.
Because of the risk of being involved in plagiarism suits, the studios
will not read stories directly submitted by unknown writers, but the
synopsized story, or "original," written specifically for the screen and
submitted through recognized agents, is an important source of screen
fare today. Such stories are often fewer than twenty pages in length,
but written with great attention to possible shots and screen-play con
struction.
Besides novels, plays, and originals, the producer s story may come
from an idea of his own, based on the need of some special star, a bio
graphical or historical character, or something from the world of science
or invention. If such is the case, an outside writer s fee is usually elim
inated: the studio s own writers are put directly to work hatching the
producer s egg. Prices paid for stories are of course based on the de
mand for them: agents frequently send copies of an original story to all
major studios simultaneously, hoping the bidding will hike up the price.
Nevertheless, it is not unusual for a relatively unknown author to be
paid as little as $500 for a story which will be used as the vehicle for
an "A" picture packed with stars and feature players. Best-selling
novels, successful Broadway plays, and originals from the pens of well-
known authors bring prices ranging from $1,000 up.
In making synopses and passing judgment on stories, the story de
partment readers consider many questions. Is the story a suitable
vehicle for any of this studio s stars? Will it lend diversification to the
studio s production schedule or broaden its scope? Does it belong to
a currently popular cycle, or does it have qualities that might make it
a forerunner of a new cycle? If one or more of these possibilities exist,
the story editor is likely to call it to the attention of one of the pro
ducers on his lot. In 1939 the severest problem of producers, as far as
stories were concerned, was finding new material for highly specialized
and "typed" stars such as Edward Arnold, George Raft, Grace Moore,
and Marlene Dietrich.
Checking title rights is an important duty of the story editor. Be
cause good titles are in great demand, unscrupulous producers not con
nected with the major lots sometimes register titles with the Hays
office (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.)
and assign a cheap writer to work out a story to fit it. Because regis
tration entitles the holder to the title rights for a limited period of
time, provided the holder can prove intention of using it, this practice
has enabled more than one Hollywood entrepreneur to grab a handsome
price running into four figures for a two, three, or four word title.
Although there is some talk around Hollywood to the effect that
82 LOS ANGELES
writers should learn to submit stories in scenario form rather than as
originals, very few scenarios are purchased. When a producer gets his
hands on what he considers a good story idea his first step is the hiring
of a writer to make a treatment an intermediary step between the raw
material and the shooting script. From the writer s point of view, the
treatment is a description on paper of just how the screen writer plans
to make the raw material into a product suitable for screening, and he
generally writes the treatment after conferring with the producer and
the director. Once the treatment has been accepted at a second story
conference, the writer does the first draft of the script itself. If the
original material is a novel, the writing of the script involves a great
deal of condensation; if a play, the process is one of expansion. Because
condensation of literary material generally produces more artistic results
than does expansion, most writers find novels more congenial to work
with than plays.
In subsequent story conferences with his producer, the director, and
perhaps the art director, the script begins to take the form of a motion
picture. Such things as camera angles and photographic composition
are considered and within a few weeks, if all goes well, the script re
turns to the producer in final form called shooting script. This final
version may be the second draft, or the fifteenth depending on whether
or not the producer is willing to accept the ideas of the director and
screen writer working for him. Before production can be launched,
however, the script is submitted to the Hays office, whose function is
to warn the studio against deletions that may be expected by the censor
ship boards of various states and the objections of civic and religious
groups and foreign nations. The script is then taken over by the tech
nicians and converted into a breakdown, which means that some hun
dred and twenty-odd typewritten pages are transformed to a large board
covered with small tickets, each ticket representing a scene. The break
down reveals with amazing exactitude how many days will be con
sumed in the shooting of the picture, and because the length of shooting
has much to do with ultimate cost of the picture, cutting is frequently
necessary at this point. Once this has been done, the writer s contribu
tion has been made.
In choosing a writer the producer has a large field from which to
select. There are thousands of writers in Hollywood, and more thou
sands elsewhere. He may choose a studio writer, or he may choose a
free lance. In any case, his aim is to secure someone adept in following
the story through its many drafts, and he will of course choose someone
familiar with screen technique. "New York writers," a term that
embraces all scribes outside of Hollywood, receive weekly wages in the
thousands, but the studios writing shops contain many "junior writers"
who receive less than $50 a week because they lack "prestige."
THE MOVIES 83
Some producers call in additional writers to work on the story.
One may contribute new situations; another, dialogue; and a third, the
continuity or final form of the screen play. Producers of this stripe
are for the most part unpopular with authors and directors, however,
for the latter believe it is impossible to obtain unity in a story when
each writer has a different conception of it.
When the writer submitted his first draft of the script he, perhaps
unknowingly, launched the studio into a flurry of activity. Copies of
his script were sent to all departments, and the production office, which
supervises the budgets and co-ordinates the activities of all departments,
has assigned a unit manager to supervise the physical problems and
finances. The director has chosen his assistant (except in those cases,
not rare, where the director is not picked until the story is close to final
form). The art department has prepared sketches for the various sets.
The music department has been working on a score, and on special
songs, if they are called for, and casting is well under way.
Although the stars are customarily chosen for a picture by the pro
ducer and the director, the brunt of the casting job falls to the casting
director, who has his special classifications of the thousands of players
listed in Hollywood, which he consults as soon as he receives his copy of
the script. He makes suggestions for the various parts in the script on
an assignment sheet, which he sends to the producer and director. If
a director is doubtful about a casting director s choices that director
will make his own tests. Otherwise, the casting director himself han
dles the production tests for the actors tentatively chosen, after which
the budget for salaries is checked by the production office and the
players contracts drawn up. The average cost of a production test is
$600; consequently the selections of the casting director are made with
care.
Hollywood measures its actors strictly according to rank. There
are stars, feature players, and bit players in the studio s stock company,
and from this roster the casting director makes all selections except
extras and atmosphere players. A contract player, or star, is an actor or
actress who has a term contract for six months. This contains options
renewable up to seven years, a guaranteed salary for twenty out of
twenty-six weeks whether or not the player works, and a lay-off period
of six weeks during which he or she must have at least one consecutive
week s lay-off. The contract also provides for a rising salary scale. On
theatre marquees the star s name precedes the name of the picture,
whereas those of feature and bit players, contracted for on a weekly and
daily basis and considered important in bolstering up a picture, follow
the picture title on the theatre marquees.
A star borrowed from another studio is engaged at a fixed sum.
Borrowed feature players continue to draw their regular salaries from
84 LOS ANGELES
their home studios. The borrowing studio pays the home studio not
less than a month s salary for the feature player s services, plus an "ac
cumulated carrying charge" fixed at three weeks salary that presumably
reimburses the home studio for having carried the actor during idle
periods. Lesser supporting players are never loaned on less than a
monthly basis.
Selecting supporting players is a simple matter compared to the
task of picking extras and atmosphere players. In the studios early
days many agencies sprang up to handle the throngs of people hoping
for movie careers. When a studio needed extras a casting director in
one of the agencies would inspect the crowd outside his door and select
the most likely types, and those selected paid the agency a percentage of
their earnings. This unfair and inefficient system in 1926 was sup
planted by the Central Casting Corporation, an office founded by the
Association of Motion Picture Producers. Receiving over 11,000 calls
for work each day, it is the largest employment agency in the world.
In 1939 an extra is any actor not required to speak lines who re
ceives $16.50 or less per day and is not under contract to the studio.
All wage distinctions depend on appearance, physical type, and ward
robe. The lowest wage, $5.50, is paid for nondescript mob and atmos
pheric types. Extras who portray attendants, porters and the like re
ceive $8.25, and extras who take the parts of policemen, waiters, busi
ness men, and people in street clothes are paid $11 a day. Those re
ceiving the highest wage must provide and maintain their own ward
robes, including complete sports, afternoon, and evening outfits. Period
costumes and uniforms are, however, provided by the studios.
Babies used in films are well paid. Babies thirty days old or under
receive $75 a day; those thirty to ninety days old receive $50 a day;
those from three to six months of age receive $25. But any child under
six months of age is permitted by law to remain at a studio only two
hours a day and allowed an actual working time not to exceed 20
minutes, with exposure to artificial lights limited to 30 seconds at a
time. Doctors and nurses must be on hand for frequent physical exam
inations because the studio is by law responsible for the infants they
employ even six months after their performances.
When production begins, the assistant director each day notifies the
casting department what extras are required for the following day.
The studio casting directors in the major studios send their orders via
teletype to Central Casting, where a bell rings, a light shows, and the
order is automatically typed out with the date, the time the extras must
report, the name of the director, the number of the production, the
type of makeup necessary, and other details. Then follow the number
of extras, their ages, costumes, salaries, and other specifications. Known
as call sheets, these orders are placed in the hands of assistant casting
THE MOVIES 85
directors, who sit before call boards containing the names of thousands
of extras not working that day. The name plate of each extra has a
number of colored dots indicating his or her wardrobe. As the calls
for the extras required come in, they are conveyed by a loudspeaker from
the telephone switchboard to the specially constructed desks. Thus an
assistant casting director may have any call turned over to him. He
rejects some, assigns others, and himself phones those he particularly
wants.
The routine in assigning minors for atmosphere or bits is much the
same as for adults, except that the California State Board of Education
keeps a watchful eye over the procedure. Children registered at Cen
tral must renew a permit from the board every three months. Permis
sion to keep their names active at Central is predicated on a physical
examination and a satisfactory scholastic record. While on the set the
children must attend school under the instruction of a teacher appointed
by the board (salary paid by the studio), cannot be on the set more
than eight hours, and must be attended by a parent or guardian.
The intricate files of Central Casting classify the 12,000 registered
extras according to sex, age, height, and general appearance; and list
such physical assets as chinlessness, large feet, buck teeth, and cauli
flower ears. Registrants are also classified as to previous occupation and
proficiency in the various entertainment fields. A machine called the
mechanical casting director may be used to run through the files and
selects extras of desired qualifications by the numbers on their cards, but
it is used infrequently because the employees of Central Casting carry
relatively complete files in their heads. The head casting director
alone knows by heart the names, addresses, wardrobes, and qualification
of several thousand registrants. Unfortunately, only about five per cent
of Hollywood s army of extras get calls. The casting directors them
selves freely state that to join the ranks of the extras is the quickest way
down. There is almost no hope of advancement, and every chance of
slipping. Outside of the studio, however, producers, directors, and
talent scouts conduct a continuous hunt for new stars. Little thea
tres, radio stations, night clubs, and road shows are combed by scouts
who work from a central office in New York City.
The art department is one of the first to start work on a motion pic
ture and one of the last to finish. Shortly after the selection of the
story, and while it is still in its synopsis form, the art director confers
with the producer and gives his general ideas concerning the treatment
of scenes, and at the same time submits a rough estimate of the cost and
required space for the necessary sets. When the actual shooting is over,
the art director is still on the job to receive the final order to demolish
the sets, with parts preserved for possible future use.
The department is headed by a supervising art director, and con-
86 LOS ANGELES
tains several unit art directors and artists of individual style and talent
actually in charge of specific productions, a staff of designers and drafts
men. The set dressing department is also under the supervision of the
art department, and the construction department and the drapery de
partment are closely connected with the practical work of the art
director.
Keeping in mind the mood of the story, the action encompassed by
it, and such problems as lighting and color, the supervising director pre
pares board plans for the set and turns them over to a unit art director.
The latter prepares a layout which includes sketches of every set in the
picture and elevation drawings drawn to scale. To assist a non-visual
minded director, water-color sketches or small models are sometimes also
prepared. From the sketches the designers, draftsmen, and artists con
struct the working plans of the sets. To prepare a set plan for final
approval, the unit director, guided by the final script and assisted by the
research department, determines how much of each set must be con
structed to cover the action of the scenes and how much may be
"faked" with the aid of the special-effects department. For many sets
only the lower part of buildings are constructed, the illusion of great
distance frequently being created by means of construction on a reduced
scale.
From the working plans estimates are made which must closely ap
proximate the budget allowance. When the new plans and estimates
have been completed and considered in conference by the producer, di
rector, and others involved, the actual set construction commences,
under the supervision of the unit art director. Following the art de
partment s plans and sketches, set dressers collect necessary furniture,
rugs, and pictures mostly from studio warehouses. When the super
vising art director has passed on the finished sets the various other de
partments with work to do on them are notified, and the sets are then
turned over to the director and production begins. In carrying out the
ideas of the art department the property department and set dressers
bear in mind that a single off-color or misplaced object becomes "busy"
or discordant, and takes attention away from the story and the actors.
From twenty-five to thirty sets are required for the average picture,
although some require twice as many. Most of them are erected on the
sound stages, although some outdoor scenes may send the company on
"location," which usually means to the studio "ranch," a studio site per
haps an hour s distance from the lot. Sets are constructed on the mas
sive sound stages whenever possible. Location trips are expensive and
studio equipment is more accessible and physical conditions more readily
controlled on the lot. The open areas of the studio lot are also used
wherever possible, an entire village frequently springing up almost over
night beside administration buildings and sound stages. To the eye of
THE MOVIES 87
the visitor such sets are extremely life-like, although close inspection
will show the stones in a massive building are papier-mache and hollow
in back, and the palm trees in a native setting consist of a pole or two
ingeniously cloaked in burlap and composition plaster with real fronds
fastened to a small platform at the top. Leaves are lacquered to give
the appearance of freshness, and the water in the river before a cluster
of thatched native huts is from the Los Angeles city water mains. In a
thousand such ingenious ways the artists and construction workers of the
studio obviate the necessity of expensive miles of travel.
Some studios employ special "experts" to work out required opti
cal illusions, but these are usually referred to the special-effects division-
of the property department, or, if the special effect desired is novel and
extremely difficult, it is worked out in collaboration by several depart
ments. Most of the tricks are standardized. The "breakaway" chairs
and tables shattered on an actor s head are constructed of light and
brittle balsa wood. Breakaway glass, manufactured from confectioners
sugar, is not only difficult to make but requires special iceboxes and chem
icals for preservation. But special resin has recently been developed that
can be melted and molded into sheets and stored without difficulty. Fog
is manufactured by shooting compressed air through crystal oil, and
cobwebs are made with rubber cement sprayed from a special airgun.
Blood is usually composed of chocolate syrup and glycerine. Especially
gruesome effects with this concoction have been produced for consump
tion in some foreign countries where censorship has been slight. In a
recent production containing gory battle scenes the illusion of a spear
passed through a man s body was achieved by means of a leather belt
around his waist with pieces of spear screwed to it fore and aft. A spear
striking a man was in reality hollow and projected along a wire which
ran from a point beyond camera range to a wood pad concealed beneath
the victim s clothing. Decapitation and disemboweling were accom
plished by means of a dummy head and shoulders attached to an un
usually short extra player, and a rubber knife swung against an arti
ficial abdomen fitted with a zipper arrangement spilled the warrior s,
insides when an invisible string was yanked.
Large-scale illusions are more complex and more expensive. The
highly dramatic wind storm in a 1937 production required the use of
thirteen wind machines large propellers attached to airplane motors;
and the cascading waves that washed away an entire village were pro
duced by simultaneously releasing the water from a series of storage
tanks into a concrete basin in which a miniature village had been con
structed. Close-up sequences showing crumbling church walls were
produced on a sound stage w r ith the aid of water tanks, papier-mache
bricks, and soluble mortar.
A property man can quickly acquire almost anything by consulting
88 LOS ANGELES
his files. Malayan badgers, boa constrictors, parrots, and African
beetles all may be rented in Hollywood; butterflies may be ordered by
the dozen and ants by the quart.
Costume and make-up departments are both active long before a pic
ture is actually shot. Aside from the fact that Hollywood designers
must anticipate styles by at least six months, the astute and talented
fashioners of clothing give a great deal of attention to the psychological
effect of clothing on both actors and audience. They must also closely
consider the photographic problems of light and composition. Costumes
are invariably designed for the star and usually for the feminine sup
porting players. The male members of the cast supply their own
wardrobes unless it is a period production. Before work is actually
begun on costumes, sketches made by the wardrobe artists are okehed
by the producer, the director, and the actors concerned. Besides dress
ing the stars and feature players, the wardrobe department frequently
is called upon to supply hundreds of costumes for extras and bit players.
These may be rented from several large Hollywood costume companies
that function independently of the studios. Often, however, suitable
costumes cannot be rented but must be made. If such costumes are
needed in great quantities it is sometimes cheaper for the studio to con
tract for them with outside wholesale tailoring establishments. Never
theless, the studios own storage rooms are choked with clothing of all
descriptions from all periods of history. The wardrobe shops of the
large studios are in themselves a garment industry, containing rows of
cutting and ironing boards, sewing machines, and all the other para
phernalia of the garment trade.
The make-up department is busiest during production, but special
make-up for stars and character actors is prepared far in advance of the
shooting date. Make-up is broadly divided as "corrective" and "charac
ter." The former is skillfully applied shade and color to create or
enhance attractiveness and charm, and make-up artists work closely with
cameramen to achieve desirable results. Many women with blue eyes,
for instance, are always lit with a small spotlight fitted with a magenta-
colored gelatin screen to increase their eyes darkness and sparkle, and
one star owes much of her glamor to the consistent use of a strong down
ward-pointed light on her face, which accentuates her high cheekbones
and makes the lower part of her face appear less square.
Make-up and the ability to wear it are probably 75 per cent of a
successful character portrayal. Character make-up is an artist s job,
involving the transmission of a detailed visualization from paper to
the screen. Sometimes many tests with different actors and different
types of make-up are necessary before a successful characterization is
achieved.
During the period preparatory to shooting the production office has
THE MOVIES 89
been busy. From the picture s early days a unit man from the produc
tion office and an assistant director have been on the job co-ordinating
activities and watching time schedules and budget allowances. The
production office manager exercises broad supervision over the progress
of the film, alloting stage space so that production will not be held
up on this account. He eliminates, often over the objections of director
and writer, scenes he believes are unnecessary. He is careful to see
that pictures start on time to meet release dates, and he makes allowance
in his schedule for the six to eight weeks required in the cutting and
dubbing rooms. Once the shooting schedule has been set and produc
tion commenced, he stands by to see that no time is lost, for, as at no
other period in the making of a movie, while production is under way,
time is important. Millions of dollars flow through his office and all
manner of errors and accidents must be eliminated, or tracked down and
adjusted by him.
The production manager s representative, the unit man, however,
exercises a more immediate and close supervision over the individual pic
ture. With the assistant director, the unit man breaks down the script
after it has been finally okehed. The breakdown reveals the amount
of time to be used for each set and the number of players needed, and
itemizes in minute detail the requirements of every department. This
breakdown tells each department exactly what it will have to furnish
throughout the production, with full descriptions and quantities enumer
ated. It is the studio Bible, and guaranteed to give the assistant di
rector and production unit man a headache superseded only by the one
they get from making up the preliminary shooting schedule. The
latter must be changed repeatedly until every department is satisfied.
The preliminary shooting schedule is written up from the breakdown,
and specifies the set time, the time each character actually works, the
number of days he is idle, and the total number of days needed for the
completion of his part.
It is from the preliminary shooting schedule that the various depart
ments work out their budgets, which they send to the production man
ager. The head of the electrical department, for instance, after receiv
ing the shooting schedule, consults the production department and with
the latter works out estimates of the number of electricians, lights, and
the amount of electricity that will be necessary. The same general
procedure is followed by art, property, and other departments.
When all departments have turned in their budgets, the production
manager assembles them and adds the studio overhead expense, which
may run as high as 40 per cent of the total. He then prepares a final
shooting schedule, in consultation with all department heads. The pro
duction manager includes in his budget allowances for the sound and
music departments, transportation and location expenses, script clerks,
9O LOS ANGELES
the photographers who will make "stills" each day of the shooting,
stand-ins for the stars, and other miscellaneous items.
The last days before shooting begins are hectic ones for the assistant
director. Although assigned by the production office he is in reality
responsible both to production office and director and he frequently has
difficulty pleasing the two. With such paper work as the breakdown
and the shooting schedule out of the way, he has tasks assigned by the
director. He assembles the staff of technicians, selects extras and bit
players for the director to approve, and just before shooting actually
begins conducts a last minute inspection of schedules, scenes, props, and
players. On the morning when the director arrives on the set to conduct
his first rehearsals, it is largely due to the labor of his assistant that chaos
has given way to a semblance of order.
Directors are for the most part typed as to temperament, a condi
tion no doubt due to the stereotyping of film stories. One director is
known for his skill in handling fast-paced comedies; another is known
for his handling of subtle psychological drama. Most directors are
specialists in particular fields, having been made so by their past ex
perience.
During pre-shooting preparation the director has met a barrage of
questions from the various studio departments, because his is the final
judgment in determining what interpretation the story is to receive from
the camera. He must pass judgment on questions of art, story construc
tion, costumes, actors, music, lighting, and camera technique. When
shooting begins, the director would like to concentrate simply on getting
a hundred and fifty harmonious and meaningful photographs on a few
miles of celluloid ribbon, but no such happy lot is his. Throughout
production he must co-ordinate the work of the various technical de
partments, at the same time attempting to keep technical and mechani
cal factors subservient to his artistic plan.
He would like extensive rehearsals, for instance, but for most pic
tures these are economically impossible. As a rule he must be content
with brief rehearsals, trusting his performers to have absorbed some
thing of the mood and feeling of the story beforehand. Not infrequently
this trust is misplaced. Before shooting, a careful director rehearses
the scene for action. Then it is rehearsed for cameras and lighting, and
again for the sound department, which checks the levels and position of
the actors voices. When lighting, focus, and sound are satisfactory the
actors take their places. A signal light indicates that sight and sound
are in focus. The director and cinematographer give last-minute in
structions, and the director calls "action," or "speed." A bell then
rings, a red light flashes a warning at the stage entrance, and the
cameras begin their work. The shot seldom takes more than two
minutes. Then come retakes two or three, or perhaps a dozen if
THE MOVIES 91
imperfections are noted. Afterwards, camera, light, and sound adjust
ments are made for close-ups, long shots, dissolves, fade-ins, and other
variations which may later be used to add to the picture s interest and
action.
Actual shooting generally requires more than a month for an "A"
picture, and to an outsider an interminable amount of time seems to be
wasted: in an eight-hour day only three to six minutes of film are shot
which will be seen in the theatres. But the long waits are a necessary
part of production, during which the many technical adjustments of
lights, camera, and sound are made. The script girl is an indispensihle
aid to the director during production. Sitting beside him, she takes
detailed notes concerning "business," use of props, and camera angles.
Many scenes are shot in violation of the story s chronology, to enable the
production office to get the maximum amount of service from stages as
well as from actors. But the shooting schedule, with its careful synopses
of scenes, makes this a less difficult task than it might seem. Shooting
out of continuity is, however, a major reason why directors like to re
hearse the entire script before any shooting takes place.
Most stars as well as directors know that their best efforts can be
spoiled by an unsympathetic cinematographer. Formerly called the
cameraman, this technician is in actual charge of shooting the scenes.
He must, besides possessing the technical skill to create consistently first-
rate photographs, be artistically sympathetic to both stars and director.
Many director-cameraman teams function on a more or less permanent
basis, and the contracts of many stars make provision for their favorite
cinematographers. The cinematographer rarely touches the camera,
other than to view his set-up on the ground-glass foscusing screen. His
real work is to direct the photography of the scene leaving the me
chanics of camera operation to his crew, which consists of an operative
cinematographer, who actually runs the camera; one or two assistant
cameramen who handle details of focusing, checking and caring for the
equipment; a still man who makes the hundreds of still photographs
during shooting that are used in theatre lobbies and magazines; and a
gaffer, or chief electrician, who is not actually a member of the camera
department but is nevertheless in charge of the matter of lighting and
an invaluable aid to the cinematographer.
Unless busy on other productions, the cinematographer enters active
participation in the preparation of a picture during the early conferences
of the art department, costumers, directors, and writers. His experience
helps in selecting sites for outdoor scenes, for example, as he determines
which points can be conveyed successfully by photograph. By the time
shooting begins, the cinematographer has made detailed plans concern
ing camera angles and positions, and with the aid of stand-ins the light
ing has been roughed in. During rehearsals he perfects such details as
92 LOS ANGELES
changes of lighting required by movements of the players and unwanted
reflections cast by a piece of furniture or a bowl of flowers. Every
factor may be photographically correct in the first take, but four or five
are generally made, and the cinematographer tries to make each one
better than the last. It is a tribute to Hollywood s camera experts that
a scene is seldom retaken for photographic shortcomings.
The cinematographer s intricate technique of painting pictures with
light beams to create illusions of depth and roundness owes its steady im
provement to the development of improved tools. In the movies early
days lighting simply meant illumination by means of floodlights. Today,
almost the only survivor among the cinematographer s early tools is the
broadside, commonly called the broad, which is a simple lamp housing
two looo-watt globes side by side in a box-shaped reflector which spreads
their light in an even flood over an angle of approximately 60 degrees.
The fundamental tool today is the spotlight, of which there are two
basic types: the older lens-spots, and the reflecting spots which form
their beam by means of a parabolic mirror rather than a lens. A new
type, combining the features of both, is called the solar spot. It uses
a bull s-eye lighthouse type lens in combination with a small spherical
mirror to produce a smoother and more controllable beam than either of
the older types. Among a number of special-purpose lamps in use today
are the Lupe, a long funnel-shaped lamp holding a tubular globe and
mounted on a double-jointed standard which permits it to be used in
almost any position; the sky pan, a bowl-shaped reflector used against
painted sky backings or backdrops; and the relatively obsolescent banks
and strips, which are simply big floodlights holding four, six, or more
globes. For natural-color photography the standard lamps are replaced
by rotaries, sun-arcs, and Hi-arcs, noiseless arc-lighting units that pro
duce light almost identical with natural daylight.
Many tools are used to control the light projected from the
various lamps. Because present-day camera lenses frequently pick up
objects in too great detail, the diffusing screen is used to soften a picture.
Among diffusers in use are nets of fine gauze, screens of frosted gelatin,
and glass discs with a spiderwork tracery of fine lines or concentric
circles. There are also such other devices to control the lamp rays as
flat or adjustable screens, called niggers and bogos; conical hoods, often
called snouts; and snouts with adjustable, flat flaps, which are called
barndoors.
Out-of-doors light is controlled by means of reflectors, large squares
of plywood covered with tin, aluminum, or gold paint that disperse
shadows. Booster lights are also frequently used, as are canopies of
netting, called scrims, which are stretched over the players heads to
soften or eliminate direct sunlight. Another important outdoor acces-
THE MOVIES 93
sory are the color filters the cinematographer uses to accent particular
colors.
Films, lenses, and cameras have all advanced apace, as has the
technique of using them. The development of film is largely one of
progression from color-blind film sensitive only to blue and ultra-violet
light, to the super-panchromatic film in use today that sees colors in
very much the same relative strengths as the human eye. Lenses have
grown more and more accurate in their delineation of scenes, and faster.
Cameras have evolved from relatively unsteady and undependable in
struments into high-precision machines costing from five to fifteen thou
sand dollars.
No hard and fast rules concerning cinematographic technique can
be laid down, but there are certnin fundamental principles that good
moving picture photographers always bear in mind. They attempt to
keep their lighting in tune with the dramatic mood of the scene, using
an ingenious assortment of variations of the accepted rule that tragedy
requires lighting in a low key, while comedy calls for a high key. As
with the lighting, the technique of camera angles is essentially a series
of elaborations using a simple basic vocabulary. Camera angles are
based on the long, or establishing, shot; the medium shot, a closer ap
proach to the subject; the two-shot, which is the closest the camera can
approach two people and keep them both in the picture; the close-up,
and the extreme or big-head close-up. The effect of an oppressed char
acter is heightened by having the camera look slightly down on him ; the
effect of happiness or lightheartedness portrayed by a player is intensified
by having the camera look slightly up to him.
Moving-camera technique is one of the cinematographer s most
difficult problems. Such variable factors as speed, timing, and lighting
must be considered. Lighting a big moving-camera shot is in itself a
problem. Ordinary lighting satisfactory from one viewpoint is unsatis
factory when the camera has moved to another point. The lighting
must be such that during every inch of motion the camera sees things
as they should be.
Special process shots, also in the cinematographer s sphere, include
trick shots of some varieties, but the purpose of most special process
photography is to film normal action more effectively or safely than
could otherwise be possible. The most common types of special-process
shots are scenes in miniature and projected-background or transparency
shots, in which a desired back-ground perhaps in the Swiss Alps or an
African jungle is projected on a translucent screen behind the actors.
The making of special-process shots generally requires the services of a
group of cinematographic experts of the special-effects department, but
when the principal players appear in such scenes the co-operation of the
production s cinematographer is imperative.
94 LOS ANGELES
Natural color photography, the latest development in cinematog
raphy, has brought to the fore new problems in lighting and composition,
but cinematographers consider them minor ones and are confident that
as color photography nears perfection they will be able to carry on with
the same standards they have achieved in black and white.
The motion-picture studio sound department owes its existence to
inventions in the field of radio amplification. Because the recording
of sound on wax discs has given way to recording on film, the essence
of sound recording today is the transformation of sound vibrations into
light and onto a roll of film from which they may at will be repro
duced as sound. The personnel of a studio sound department usually
consists of a director of sound recording, whose work is both technical
and administrative; a chief engineer responsible for the technical phases
of operation ; a chief mixer, in charge of the various staff units working
on various pictures; several operating transmission engineers in charge
of the recording circuits and other equipment ; and sound crews assigned
to individual pictures, usually composed of a mixer, a number of stage
helpers, and a recorder responsible for the operation of the recording
machine and its auxiliary equipment.
Preparation for sound recording of a picture starts with study of
the final script to determine the special recording problems that the pic
ture advances. When the sound director and chief mixer have deter
mined the nature and scope of the picture s problems, a sound crew
and suitable equipment are assigned to the new picture. The micro
phones, amplifiers, mixer panels, recording machines, and other apparatus
required for a single recording constitute a recording channel, which
will be of the fixed type for sound-stage recordings, and mobile, usually
mounted on a truck, for location scenes.
Sound crew members report to their posts an hour or so before
shooting begins in order to connect power lines, suspend microphones,
and test their equipment. While the cast is in rehearsal the mixer checks
the quality of sound on his instruments and the recorder is simultane
ously checking the sound volume delivered to the recording machine.
When the director signals the mixer for a take, the latter signals the
recorder, who starts his motor system. Camera and recording machines
are of course synchronized. After the take is made the mixer again
signals the recorder, who stops the motor system and marks the film
for the next scene. If the take is satisfactory from all standpoints it
is approved or "choiced" for laboratory processing.
Dialogue is nearly always recorded during the actual filming of a
scene, but music is frequently pre-scored, and most other sounds are
dubbed in later. Most music scoring is done on stages specifically con
structed for that purpose. In pre-scoring a soloist with orchestral ac
companiment for instance, the orchestra is first rehearsed to check the
THE MOVIES 95
arrangement; then the soloist and orchestra rehearse together; and
finally the orchestra alone is recorded. If the recording is good the
orchestra is then dismissed, and the soloist records her song, synchroniz
ing it with the orchestra background which has already been recorded by
means of an earphone. Because she is not being photographed she is free
to indulge in facial contortions and mannerisms that would not other
wise be allowable. Voice and orchestra are later combined in one record
which is played during actual shooting of the scene in which the solo is
heard. The reproducing machine is interlocked with the camera ; con
sequently the camera and playback run at identical speeds. During the
shooting the soloist makes lip movements only, concentrating her atten
tion on a visual performance.
The regular scores that add so much to a picture s mood are usually
dubbed in after it has been filmed and edited. As a rule they are writ
ten specifically for each picture by one of the many numerous composers
who have been drawn to Hollywood. Other dubbed-in sounds such as
the chirp of a cricket or the roar of a train are secured from the extensive
files of the sound library.
Although during the making of a picture sound and photographs
are recorded on separate films, later to be synchronized and transferred
to a single strip of film, today few sounds are faked. Sound engineers
believe the actual sounds to be more realistic than imitations, as indeed
they are when recorded and reproduced by Hollywood s increasingly
precise and delicate recording instruments.
Echoes are a constant torment to sound men. On sets where heavy
draperies cannot be used echoes may spring unexpectedly from a water
glass on a table or from the corner of a set. On location, rain and wind
are likewise problems, which sound men have ingeniously circumvented.
Wind gags and rain gags consisting of a wire framework covered by
light silk or linen cloth do not completely eliminate such disturbances,
but are sufficiently effective to enable recording to be carried on when
it would otherwise be impossible.
At the close of each day s work the director, producer, actors and a
few chosen others view the previous day s "rushes," or "dailies," which
have been received from the laboratory. The most desirable takes are
selected and turned over to the film editor. Although a few studio cut
ters edit films from movietone prints with both pictures and sound on
the same film, the majority prefer the more flexible system of working
from separate sound and picture prints.
In dealing with these "dailies," or "rushes," the film editor must
exercise ingenuity and a strong sense of pictorial story-telling. His job
is to condense 30,000 to 300,000 feet of disconnected pictures into a
smooth-flowing story seldom exceeding 12,000 feet.
The more important equipment in a cutting room consists of metal
96 LOS ANGELES
rewinding tables, film bins, storage and filing cabinets, splicing and num
bering machines, and moviolas. The moviola is similar in appearance
to a projection machine, but much smaller. The picture is seen through
magnifying lens on one side, and the sound is heard on the other. The
editor uses it to make certain his cuts on the sound track are correct.
It also enables him to be certain he has not cut into a movement which
should be completed.
The film editor or his assistant put the two separate strips of film
sound and pictures through a machine that automatically numbers
them identically, foot-by-foot. This numbering system enables the cut
ter always to keep his scenes perfectly synchronized. The film strips
are next cut into scenes, after which they are assembled according to the
script. The editor endeavors to select shots that give variety and add
to the emotional tone of the story. When the various shots have been
assembled into a "rough cut" it is ready for projection first by the
film editor to catch slips, and later in a projection room before the di
rector and producer. After the latters suggestions have been incor
porated in the film by means of a recutting, various devices such as
fades, dissolves, and wipes are inserted at points that had been previously
so designated by printed titles. Such devices, formerly produced on the
set by the director and cameraman at great expense, are now made with
an optical printer, an intricate machine that holds an illuminated posi
tive in one end and focuses it on unexposed film by means of a lens.
Fades, for instance, are made by decreasing the aperture of the lens.
Inserts, symbols of thoughts or ideas such as letters, newspapers, and
clocks are also added, after which the film is sent to the laboratory again
where the negative is cut to match the new working print and a new
print made, called the "feeler print." Then, after the addition of sound
effects, dubbed-in music and the like, a print is made on which sound
track and picture film are combined.
The film is then ready for a sneak preview at a small theatre in
some neighboring town where studio executives and some of the techni
cal staff carefully observe its effect on the audience. Because the film
is not yet in final form, the studio endeavors to keep the first preview
a secret from the press. After a conference among the studio officials
and technicians who witnessed the preview, the picture may be altered
considerably, and new scenes may even be added. A final preview is
usually then held, to which members of the trade press are usually in
vited. The picture is then released to the public and its success is
measured by the degree of the public s interest as registered at the box
office.
Before the picture s release, however, the publicity office has done its
bit to make the public acquainted with its story, its players, and its ex
cellence. Studio publicity officials estimate that more than 350,000
THE MOVIES 97
words are written and distributed daily by the 350 press agents employed
by them. A major studio publicity office includes a director; "planters,"
whose job it is to get the studio s material into desirable newspapers and
periodicals; unit men who write stories and interviews concerning the
players, theme, and anything else they can think of about the specific
productions; artist and photographers.
Hollywood also contains more than 300 correspondents, each repre
senting journals of 40,000 or more circulation ; more than 100 part-
time correspondents for smaller papers; and approximately 100 out-of-
town columnists, feature writers, and magazine writers who appear at
the studios with special assignments at least once a year.
Publicity for a picture may begin before the purchase of the story
if the latter is a popular play or novel. Short notices may be released
"rumoring" that a certain producer is "angling" for the purchase. But
the carefully-budgeted "B" pictures generally receive a publicity allow
ance approximately 15 per cent of the cost of production. The money
is divided among newspapers, magazines, press sheets, billboards, pic
tures, electrotype plates, newspaper mats and the like, but 90 per cent
of all paid advertising is placed through eastern advertising agencies.
The advertising for "A" pictures is more complex and indeterminable.
If the studio is reasonably certain of a hit, money may be spent lavishly
and without any relation to production costs. An advertising campaign
is of course launched in the larger metropolitan areas in order to stimu
late interest, but in addition to this a "world premiere" costing perhaps
$25,000 may be held, and percentage arrangements may be made with
exhibitors whereby the latter agree to share advertising expenses as well
as profits. Miracles have been requested of the publicity departments
in the past, but studio officials are learning that publicity cannot make a
picture successful or a star permanent. The trend is away from ex
cessive ballyhoo, and toward emphasis on the story and title rather than
the stars.
maXGttm^^
Radio
RADIO broadcasts are as popular in Los Angeles as elsewhere,
perhaps more so. Fully 95 per cent of the homes have radio sets,
and the proportion of automobiles equipped with radios is also
high. Radio listeners in Los Angeles like what all America likes, and
their radio programs are the standardized fare of Jersey City or Des
Moines. In the political field, however, radio in southern California
reflects the peculiarities of the region; prior to elections the airways are
heavy with the propaganda of panacea movements. The EPICs,
Townsendites, Utopians, and particularly such pension movements as
"Ham and Eggs," have broadcast to an extent unknown in the rest of
the country.
Radio s early history in Los Angeles was one of hit-and-miss, of
trial and error the identical experience of radio throughout the United
States in the days of crystal sets and earphones. Radio broadcasting
began in Los Angeles in 1922, when four stations were established.
Three of them KNX, KFI, and KHJ dominated local broadcasting
from the beginning and continue to do so today, each representing a
major national chain. As elsewhere in the country, radio was considered
merely a novelty in 1922. The development of KNX, the stormy petrel
of early radio in Los Angeles prior to its acquisition by the Columbia
Broadcasting System, was due to the originality and persistence of Guy
C. Earl, promotion manager of the Los Angeles Express, who entered
the radio field in 1923 by arranging for his newspaper to give away a
thousand crystal sets as part of a circulation drive. So successful was
this first effort that he decided to use KNX permanently for promo
tional purposes. By 1924 the station was selling advertising regularly
and operating on 500 watts, though there were no definitely scheduled
broadcasts. In 1925, however, the station turned in a profit of $25,000,
and Earl began to devote more of his energy to radio, courting feuds
with other stations and local newspapers, and accepting advertising from
patent medicine firms. Always seeking the sensational, he broadcast
a local murder trial despite repeated ejections of his operatives from the
courtroom, and in 1928 broadcast the Rose Bowl game by telephone
though the telephone company had sold the broadcasting rights to KFI.
KFI, founded by Earle C. Anthony to further sales of his automobile
agency, avoided KNX s indiscriminate commercial policy. Under
writing losses, Anthony enabled KFI to pioneer in the use of musical
98
RADIO 99
and educational features that he thought would appeal to potential
buyers of the automobiles he wanted to sell. The station elaborated
continuity and program techniques and initiated a policy of co-opera
tion with schools, government agencies, and civic organizations. In
1924 it presented the first broadcast of a symphony orchestra in the
West and sponsored the country s first pick-up of a complete opera pre
sentation from the stage. During these formative years, KFI pre
sented many educational talks for government and city departments,
and it was the station s boast that every important personage who visited
the West coast addressed KFI s listeners. In 1929 Jose Rodriguez, a
musician and newspaperman, joined the station and later developed new
types of broadcasts. A few years later when KECA had been started
to supplement KFI and found itself burdened with unsalable time,
Rodriguez purchased several hundred fine phonograph recordings, broad
cast from them, and asked for audience reaction. Seeking 10,000 ap
proving votes, he received 70,000 within a week; since then such musi
cal broadcasts have been an important part of KECA s program. In
1924 KFI had joined KPO of San Francisco in the first West coast
network, and was the point of origin for the first West-to-East broad
cast. KFI also made the first Hollywood Bowl broadcast. Power was
increased from the original 100 watts to 500 in 1924 and then in 1931
to the present 50,000 watts.
KHJ was founded in 1922 by Harry Chandler, publisher of the
Los Angeles Times, and station identification was by singing canaries.
Conservative in policy, it specialized in public events and children s
programs. Chandler sold the station in 1927 to Don Lee, automobile
agency owner. KHJ became the Columbia outlet in Los Angeles until
1936 when Lee joined the Mutual network. As one of the leaders in
experimentation, KHJ has done a great deal of work in the field of
television.
In 1927 KFI joined the Red network of the National Broadcasting
Company and a year later Columbia Broadcasting System took KHJ
into its chain. KECA became the local outlet of NBC s new Gold
network in 1934, and after this chain died, of NBC s Blue network in
1936. In 1939 KECA absorbed KEHE and assumed its wave length.
A small station connected with the Hearst chain, KEHE had specialized
in sports and spot news broadcasts. Within the past two years two
smaller chains have made their appearance the Don Lee chain, cover
ing the stations of the Mutual s Western link and the California Radio
System, including KFOX and KFWB in Los Angeles.
In 1938 the Columbia Broadcasting System opened its new studios,
Columbia Square, on the site of the old Christie brothers studios.
Its local outlet, KNX, is the key station of its Pacific Coast network,
and in 1937 broadcast 18,383 programs, approximately half of them
IOO LOS ANGELES
sustaining programs. There were 6,214 educational and cultural pro
grams as against 10,352 "popular entertainment" broadcasts. It broad
casts more programs than any other CBS station.
In the spring of 1939 a total of sixteen transcontinental programs
were originating in Hollywood. NBC also completed a new studio in
1938, at Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. The Mutual network is
third insofar as national commercial broadcasts are concerned (1939),
but ranks with the other leaders in children s programs and in talks on
public events.
Los Angeles began its climb to national radio importance when the
first film talent program was released from Hollywood in 1928. A
program called California Melodies, featuring Hollywood stars and
film news, went on the air in 1930 and by 1936 many national adver
tising agencies had opened offices here and programs had become star-
studded. Variety reports that $5,000,000 was paid to 600 film players
for radio broadcasts in 1938. More than $18,000,000 is spent yearly
by six Hollywood stations. Five hundred producers, script and lyric
writers turn out Hollywood radio fare. The city still lags behind New
York, however, in the number of national broadcasts, although each
year since 1936 has seen a sizeable increase in Hollywood originations.
The facilities of both NBC and CBS are already taxed, with CBS
planning additions to its present quarters, and Mutual contemplating
the building of a radio center of its own. Recently a few film pro
ducers, under pressure from exhibitors, have taken several stars off the
air, but it is too early to determine what effect their action will have.
In 1938 network programs became almost completely unionized as
a result of a strike vote taken by the newly-organized American Federa
tion of Radio Artists (AFL), embracing actors, singers and announcers.
The strike vote, supported by film-radio stars and led by Eddie Cantor
and others, threatened a breakdown of transcontinental programs. The
country s advertising agencies yielded to AFRA demands, which were
designed to improve conditions for rank and file performers by con
trolling or eliminating hours of and pay for rehearsals, "rubber" salary
schedules, blacklists, and the practice of using one performer in more
than one part in dramatic and commercial scripts. The union in 1939
was negotiating with the networks and smaller stations. Technicians
and musicians had been organized for many years.
Of the many smaller stations in Los Angeles, KFWB is in the
medium power bracket, while others have a restricted range. KFWB, a
5,ooo-watt station founded by Warner Brothers in 1925, introduced in
1939 a policy of broadcasting dramatized versions of current as well as
historical events in order to stimulate appreciation of America s demo
cratic ideals. Typical of such programs was "America Marches On"
which featured motion-picture stars.
RADIO IOI
Several of the smaller stations owe their audience-appeal to special
features. KGFJ broadcasts sixteen full hours of news each week and
owns two ultra-high frequency experimental stations for short-wave
broadcasts. KMTR once had the experience of being "heterodyned";
during a talk given by its former owner, an oil promoter, another station
took the same wave-length and garbled his broadcast. KMPC broad
casts rehearsals of Hollywood Bowl concerts and KRKD specializes in
news and in early broadcasts of election results. KFVD centers its
programs around political events, and frequently gives free time to
liberal causes. KFSG is a noncommercial station owned by the Echo
Park Evangelistic Association and broadcasts Aimee Semple McPher-
son s sermons. Long Beach has two stations: KFOX, which achieved
fame for its emergency broadcasts after the 1933 earthquake, and
KGER, w r hich broadcasts daily concerts by the Long Beach Municipal
Band.
Educational programs sponsored by the local universities have in
creased rapidly in number since they were begun in 1930. The Univer
sity of Southern California released 600 programs in 1938. Three
15-minute broadcasts weekly and a daily broadcast on farm problems
are given by the University of California, which also presents the
I nrcersity Explorer over NBC. Los Angeles City College owns its
own studios and broadcasts over KFAC. In all, around seventy-two
educational programs are released locally each week over twelve stations.
The United Press, International and Trans-Radio press services
provide news to various stations for broadcasting. As elsewhere, the
radio-newspaper war has led most newspapers in Los Angeles to abolish
radio news columns, although they all list radio programs.
Many civic bodies in Los Angeles use radio in their work. The
Major Disaster Emergency Council, a legal body with power to act in
time of emergency, operates a short-wave set in preparation for the
"unforeseen and the unpredictable catastrophes such as fire, flood, earth
quake, tornado, pestilence." The police department uses radio com
munication in its squad cars and in 1939 asked for money to install
two-way communication. The U.S. Weather Bureau broadcasts
weather forecasts over KRKD daily and the bureau s Fruit Frost Div i-
sion broadcasts night weather-warnings to citrus farmers from Novem
ber 15 to February 15 each year. A simultaneous range station located
near Mines field and controlled at the Union Air Terminal is main
tained by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the guidance of
commercial planes.
The RCA Marine Corporation maintains a station at Torrance for
ship-to-shore communication, and RCA Communications, Inc., provide
domestic and international radiogram services, as does the Mackay Radio
and Telegraph Company. There are about 3,500 licensed short-wave
IO2 LOS ANGELES
operators in Los Angeles County, and Radio, a magazine with national
circulation devoted to amateur radio interests, is published in Los
Angeles.
In the field of television, Los Angeles ranks next to New York in
the amount of research and the number and popularity of its television
broadcasts. Television experimentation began at KHJ, chief station of
the Don Lee Broadcasting System, and since 1931 television broadcasts
have gone to several hundred receiving sets in the vicinity six times a
week. One dramatic serial has been running since March 1938. Many
developments and patents, particularly the perfection of the cathode ray
receiver, have been contributed to the new industry by the Don Lee
staff. In 1939 Earle C. Anthony, operator of KECA and KFI, applied
for a permit to erect a television broadcasting station.
More than ten million feet of motion-picture film have been tele
vised from KHJ, and motion-picture interests have kept close watch on
such experiments. Television is still undergoing a struggle for control
by various interests and is beset by the problems of the high cost of
receiving sets, inability to transmit farther than a few miles, the expense
of broadcasts, and the difficulties of acquiring advertising sponsorship.
Eventually, however, there will be probably a close interlocking be
tween television, with its far-reaching social implications, and the films
and radio, and on a very large scale. Already in Los Angeles are the
talent, musicians, writers, and the advertising agencies; and more talent
is still arriving in droves. It is by no means improbable that Hollywood
will become a television center of the world.
The Arts
THOUGH from the beginning music, painting, drama, and archi
tectural design had a part in the life and history of the pueblo
of Los Angeles, there has been no continuing line of development
in any of the arts. The traditional Spanish culture was gradually diluted
in the decades after 1840, and about 1875 was abruptly displaced. It
was not until the great numbers of new residents had begun to take
root that creative artists appeared and began to turn to the history and
esthetic traditions of the region.
ARCHITECTURE
The city of Los Angeles has great expanse but little height. It
sprawls over the plain in a seemingly interminable series of suburbs from
the City Hall, the only building that can be called a skyscraper. Aggres
sive real-estate promoters, the desire of many new residents from small
towns and farms to avoid metropolitan noise and bustle, and the auto
mobile, are responsible for its size. An ordinance, the result of the
earthquake possibilities, limits private buildings to the height of 150
feet. This, and the cost of earthquake-proof construction for tall build
ings, are responsible for the low sky line.
The downtown commercial buildings are on the whole sedate and
commonplace, but elsewhere Los Angeles is architecturally flamboyant,
and even discordant. The city contains structures of every style imagin
able, a single block often exhibiting half a dozen different treatments.
Los Angeles architecture is characterized by a flare for the eclectic
and the unusual. Lacking discipline in the past, this taste has resulted
in experiments that frequently were, to say the least, unproductive.
But with the growth of local culture and the development of sounder
modern designs all over the world, grotesqueries have been giving way
to interesting and important innovations. Particularly is this true of
domestic architecture. Besides making contributions to the design of
the moderately-priced houses that have been adopted in other sections of
the country, Los Angeles architects have evolved, through modifications
of earlier local styles, certain features that are particularly fitted to the
climate and topography of the region. Los Angeles is becoming a center
of the modern movement in architectural construction and design.
Early Los Angeles had a simple, almost uniform type of building
103
IO4 LOS ANGELES
constructed of the adobe brick the Indians of Mexico had long used for
their dwellings. It is doubtful if any formula existed for the making
of these bricks, though Donald R. Hannaford and Revel Edwards, in
Spanish Colonial or Adobe Architecture of California, have published
material on the subject gathered from interviews with descendants of
old Spanish families. In the process these people had observed that a
basin about twenty feet in diameter and two feet deep was dug in the
ground near the building site. Into this was put loam, sand, and clay,
together with straw, tile chips, or other binder. After the materials
had been stirred to a soupy consistency, the mixture was taken out, put
into molds, and dried in the sun.
The design evolved for the California missions was the result of
ideas brought from Spain and modified by the experience of the Fran
ciscan padres in Mexico, by the Indian workmen who executed the
designs, and by the limitations of the region s building materials. The
patio, the covered passage, and the dome recall plans used in Spain; the
pierced belfry, the buttress, and the absence of ornament were results
of adobe construction.
Two missions, San Fernando and San Gabriel, were established in
what is now the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. Both suffered from
disuse after the secularization in the 1830*5. Only the cloister, or living
quarters, and church have been preserved at Mission San Fernando; it
is evident that the elongated adobe cloister was conceived as a building
of majestic proportions, with sweeping horizontal lines accentuated by
the archways of a long arcade. The original floor tiles, worn hollow in
places, are still in the arcade floor, and hand-wrought ironwork around
doors and windows shows the quality of the work of Indian black
smiths. The original lines of the rear wall of the cloister have been
partly obscured by restoration with modern brick, steel, and concrete,
and new openings have been cut without apparent plan. The church
behind the cloister still contains some of the original hand-hewn rafters.
Lying between the church and the living quarters of the fathers are the
roofless ruins of other buildings, formerly shops and the like. No
attempt has been made to restore them.
The church of Mission San Gabriel appears much as it did when
built, although here also old windows have been bricked up and new
ones cut. The proportions of the present belfry, which are unsatisfac
tory in relation to the rest of the church, suggest that the original
belfry, which was situated towards the front of the building, was higher.
The living quarters of Mission San Gabriel are smaller and less con
spicuous than those of San Fernando.
Civil architectural design, springing from the same traditions and
using the same materials, repeated the severe, simple lines of the mis
sions. Adobe brick buildings housed the soldiers, officials, and settlers
THE ARTS IO5
of the pueblos. There seems to have been no effort to complicate their
construction or to ornament them. Not all of those that have survived
are beautiful, but most of them are characterized by a simplicity of
design that comes from straightforward methods of solving problems of
construction and planning.
The walls were laid on light foundations of stone, if any, and
averaged about three feet in thickness on the ground floor with an offset
on the inner face of the wall at the upper story decreasing its thickness
a foot. The walls of the better houses were covered with mud plaster ;
these were heavily whitewashed at least once a year to protect the
surface from the effects of rain. The exterior lines were usually broken
only by unobtrusive windows, and, in the two-story houses, by a simple
balcony. Economy dictated an even greater simplicity for the less
elaborate dwellings, producing small houses with flat, pitch-covered
roofs and pleasing lines. Usually they were of one, two, or three rooms,
built in a row or in the shape of an L, or, less frequently, forming a
rectangle with one open side.
The typical plan of the larger houses was well adapted to the
simple and hospitable life of the times. On the ground floor were the
living room, dining room, kitchen, storage rooms, and the veranda from
which stairs led to the balcony. All bedrooms were usually on the
second floor and were entered from the balcony, besides being intercom
municating. Doors opened onto the patio, a wholly or semienclosed
interior court inherited from southern Spain. Planted with flowers and
sometimes having a fountain, the patio was a social center used almost
as much for living as was the house. The Pio Pico mansion in Monte-
bello, a rambling structure with a patio, built about 1824, is probably
the best example of a large adobe still standing in the Los Angeles area.
During the Mexican period many of the larger houses served a
double purpose : they were both residences and government offices. Thus
the Abel Stearns* palacio was also the prefect s office, and the curate s
house of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels was a jail. The only
building used entirely for official purposes was the Government House,
an adobe built in the early 1830*5.
Before 1850 the Yankee traders, drawn to California largely by the
trade in hides and tallow, had begun the blending of New England
traditions with those native to California, which resulted in an outstand
ing subdivision of early California design the Monterey. Essentially
a Spanish adobe structure with woodwork from New England, the most
distinguishing feature of the Monterey house was the covered frame
balcony projecting from the main facade. One- and two-story porches
on several sides of the house were also common.
By 1850 clay bricks were being manufactured locally and were soon
being used in nonecclesiastical buildings. Usually brick structures fol-
106 LOS ANGELES
lowed the lines of the adobes. The two-story buildings, however,
differed from those of native design, and followed the design of build
ings in the East. Frame construction gained popularity a few years
later when Los Angeles began to import quantities of lumber from the
Pacific Northwest. The traditional frame house of the East and the
equally traditional wooden store of the frontier with its false second-
story facade, became common even fashionable. Board-and-batten
construction, in which planks were nailed upright with the intervening
cracks covered by thin wood strips, was likewise used extensively at
this time.
The wave of building after the Civil War gave Los Angeles many
office buildings and hotels two and three stories high. The builders, for
the most part being easterners, naturally followed the prevailing eastern
vogue for curlicues, gables, and mansard roofs. Some of the buildings
of this period still standing in the northern end of the business district
indicate the lack of trained architects in Los Angeles in the sixties,
seventies, and eighties, and they show that the plague of overornamenta-
tion current at the time was not confined to the East. In residential
areas, bay windows bulged from almost every fashionable house; pillars
supported little or nothing; colored glass ornamented the doors and
windows.
In the nineties architects and engineers came to Los Angeles from
the East in increasing numbers, bringing new architectural ideas. Build
ings grew taller, their height tending to minimize their overornamenta-
tion. In 1898 the city s first structural steel building was erected, the
Homer Laughlin building, still standing in 1940. The introduction of
structural steel helped to terminate a period of garishness that had lasted
for nearly thirty years. Around 1900, builders began to modify the
harshness of the new type of structure by grouping windows and intro
ducing light wells.
At the turn of the century an innovation, the bungalow, was intro
duced from the Far East, and adapted to local needs; the California
bungalow gained nation-wide popularity. The stuccoed house was also
developed and the design was called Mission style. The Mission style
house can be studied for the most part only in photographs, but the
bungalow still stands in the older sections of the city a one-story
structure of shingles or redwood siding, frequently with pergolas, occa
sionally with curved roof lines inspired by the Oriental, and often a
front porch supported by cobblestone piers. In its heyday, the California
bungalow was almost a symbol of southern California.
Adaptations of American Colonial, French, and English styles ap
peared shortly after 1900, as highly trained Beaux Arts architects came
to Los Angeles from the East. A wave of building in the Swiss chalet
style began about 1908, followed soon after by "Dutch" Colonial.
THE ARTS IO7
Los Angeles was diverted from the eclectic paths being followed in
the East largely through the introduction and wide acceptance of tradi
tional Mexican, Spanish, and Italian Mediterranean designs and motifs.
For this diversion Bertram G. Goodhue was largely responsible. A
New York architect who had revived traditional designs in the East,
Goodhue recognized the fitness of traditional Mexican design for the
Southwest. He became chief architect of the San Diego Exposition in
1915, which popularized the revival, just as the Chicago World s Fair
of 1893 had popularized a revival of Greek and Roman motifs. His
adaptations of Mexican ecclesiastical architecture, a combination of
plain surfaces and elaborately carved ornament, directed scores of
southern California architects to the Spanish-Colonial revival.
Early southern California efforts in the Mexican tradition were for
the most part clumsy, and contrasted sharply with the restrained and
tasteful work in the Spanish tradition developed a few years later by
George Washington Smith. Smith s own house, constructed in Santa
Barbara about 1920, influenced other architects and helped establish a
new version of design in the Spanish tradition in southern California.
Plans for his house were inspired by the rural buildings of Spanish
Andalusia; besides establishing the intimate relationship between house
and garden by means of the patio, it was notable for its simplicity and
proportions. The work of Elmer Grey and Myron Hunt also had an
important bearing on the southern California trend toward designs
based on old Mediterranean examples.
Italian adaptations were also evolved during this period, more
formal and monumental than the Spanish ; but interest was growing in
early California structures, caused to some degree by the gradual
vulgarization of the Mediterranean styles in untrained hands. Among
the first architects to turn toward California s earlier buildings were
Reginald Johnson and Roland Coate, who about 1925 began to draw
inspiration from the old buildings, particularly those in Monterey be
cause the best examples remaining are in that town. The new southern
California designers in what became known as the Monterey style added
such details as ornamental cast iron on balconies, inspired by the elab
orate iron grills of New Orleans.
Eclecticism is still the keynote. Although the Mediterranean tradi
tion has declined, the Monterey-Early California style shows no signs
of decreasing. It is particularly evident in the one-story house con
structed entirely of wood. Stucco is the most common exterior surfac
ing, although brick, stone and wood boarding, vertical boarding, and
shingles are common. Adapted American Colonial and English Georg
ian designs are also prevalent. But in nearly all designs and combina
tions of designs, such local influences as the patio, low pitch of roofs,
large window space, and bright colors, have caused modifications.
IO8 LOS ANGELES
Adherents of the modern school that emphasizes a restatement of
values and a more logical use of materials and accessories have been
growing in influence. They have been particularly strong in the field
of domestic architecture since the early thirties, and today Los Angeles
is becoming internationally known for its many houses exhibiting the
modern trend. This is largely the result of the work of two European-
trained architects, Richard J. Neutra and R. M. Schindler, and a group
of men under their leadership. During the past few years this group
has won many prizes in national competitions. The exteriors of their
structures display decks stressing the horizontal line and contrasting
vertical surfaces of concrete and glass, which are especially striking
when the house projects from the side or top of a hill. The interiors
are usually based on a floor plan of flowing room spaces, with wide
expanses of glass increasing the effect of cool airiness.
Possibly the best example of Neutra s work is the Beard House on
Meadowbrook Road in Altadena. It is of steel, glass, and concrete, no
wood having been used in its construction. Frank Lloyd Wright, a
pioneer in the field of functional design, planned five residences in the
Los Angeles area, but his effect upon public taste as evidenced in local
houses has not been great. With the exception of the Millard House
(La Miniatura) in Pasadena, and possibly the Barnsdall residence on
Olive Hill, now occupied by the California Art Club, Wright s local
houses are not considered the best examples of his work.
The worst of southern California s stucco bungalows and there are
many acres of them that are ugly have been the result of speculative
builders efforts to keep abreast of recurrent waves of newcomers. There
is a growing tendency, however, for the speculative builder to follow a
few standard floor plans and designs that for the most part are imitative
of the work of prominent architects. As a consequence, though lagging
behind the professionally designed house, the cheaper residences have
improved in appearance and utility in recent years. A number of Los
Angeles architects, including H. Roy Kelley, are widely recognized for
improving small-home architecture.
Commercial building activities were released during the early twen
ties in a building boom of tremendous impetus that did not subside until
after the economic collapse of 1929. Office buildings, factories, and
stores sprang up in surrounding areas as well as downtown. This was
the period that produced most of Los Angeles domed and turreted
filling stations, wayside hot dog stands designed to resemble unhappy
pups, mammoth ice cream cones, Egyptian temples, baskets of fruit, and
piebald pigs. But the tendency of that day was for a minimum of
ornament; narrower windows, often recessed; vertical lines; concrete
surfaces. And in factories and industrial plants prettification and ex
crescence were kept down to a minimum. One of the most interesting
THE ARTS IO9
of the modern industrial structures is the Douglas Aircraft Company
hangar at Santa Monica, designed by Taylor and Taylor, where the
vast swing of the cantilever construction suggests the soaring lines of
flight.
Several of Los Angeles civic buildings constructed in the late twen
ties and early thirties seek, within the limits imposed by reinforced
concrete construction, to maintain the traditional appearance of mas-
sivity of structure, the most conspicuous example being the City Hall.
The Central Public Library, characteristic of Goodhue s work in the
field of civic architecture, is also massive but restrained, and the new
Acute Unit of the County Hospital, and the Los Angeles Times build
ing, the latter designed to harmonize with the adjacent Civic Center,
are characteristic of recent commercial and public construction.
An unhappy recent trend is the "moderne" facade, which utilizes
polished steel, chromium, curved glass, mirrors, glass blocks, and con
crete in what the designers believe to be a startling up-to-dateness. Usu
ally, as seen in many renovated stores along Hollywood Boulevard,
these superimposed decorations are both garish and unconvincing. Sev
eral attractive buildings, however, have been erected in Hollywood
recently: notably the Columbia Broadcasting System Center, designed
by William Lescaze, and the National Broadcasting Company s new
building of sweeping horizontal lines combined with glass and metal
trim.
In the Wilshire Boulevard shopping district are several well-designed
modern structures, including Bullock s Wilshire department store, w r hich
displays an exterior of buff terra cotta and green metal, and I. Mag-
nin s, a lavish structure with a modernized exterior of classic simplicity
and restraint.
In the construction of large commercial buildings Los Angeles is
notable for its broad and in some ways original use of structural rein
forced concrete and exposed concrete as a finished surface. Because of
the high cost of importing structural steel, and the low cost of the
plentiful cement, many downtown buildings, including the Paramount
Theatre building, the Million Dollar Theatre building, and the Phil
harmonic Auditorium, are of reinforced concrete construction. When
the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, was constructed in 1905-6, its
massive dome, a single shell of reinforced concrete, was the only rein
forced concrete structure with this feature in the United States. The
earthquake hazard has decreased the use of brick and increased the use
of this type of concrete construction in recent years.
Most of the churches in Los Angeles are of traditional design, for
the most part in the Italian Renaissance and Gothic styles. An example
is the St. James Episcopal Church in South Pasadena, designed by
Goodhue and combining Tuscan Renaissance design with English Gothic
IIO LOS ANGELES
detail. Spanish-Colonial influence is, however, discernible in several of
the newer churches, among them the Church of St. Vincent de Paul on
West Adams Boulevard. One of the city s largest synagogues, the Wil-
shire Boulevard Temple, is of Romanesque inspiration with a dome
bearing bright terra-cotta tile mosaics.
In the field of school architecture, attempts to relate the plans to
both climate and material have been highly successful. After southern
California was belatedly awakened to the need for more soundly con
structed schools by the 1933 earthquake, which damaged scores of brick
school buildings, a large building program was at once drawn up. The
architects were influenced by progressive ideas in education and by an
appreciation of the possibilities for outdoor school activity in the region,
as well as by the necessity for safe construction. Today, attractively
landscaped playgrounds, flat roofs, and a spreading arrangement of one-
and two-story buildings have become standard in local schools.
In recent years civic groups and architects have joined forces in a
movement to extend the present Civic Center, the only actual stone-and-
steel realization of many nebulous proposals for city planning. A plan
for the Center, prepared by John C. Austin in 1938 for the Los Angeles
County Development Committee, envisions development of the new
Center within the area bounded by First, Alameda, Ord and Olive
Streets, and the replacement of many shabby and dilapidated structures
by public buildings, broad streets and parkways. The County Board of
Supervisors in 1939 petitioned the Public Works Administration for a
Federal grant to carry the project to completion.
Some architects, however, have condemned the plan, saying that the
irregular topography of the site is incompatible with the massive formal
ity of arrangement and structure, that the governmental buildings form
ing the present Center are unrelated in bulk, scale, and character, and
that the completed Center will present an incongruous collection of
architecturally heterogeneous types.
Through the administration of zoning measures, the City Planning
Commission has urged adoption of a more comprehensive city plan
designed to bring order out of the chaos engendered by industrial ex
pansion, renewed subdivision activity, and the lack of adequate trans
portation facilities. Four new zone maps compiled by the Commission
from 1936 to 1938 raised the total zoned area to 269 square miles, or
59 per cent of the total area of the city. The present-day trend in
rezoning is toward a more restrictive classification, a movement which
has been given added impetus through the Federal Housing Administra
tion s insistence on zoning protection as a requirement for mortgage
insurance.
One of the most pressing problems confronting the city today arises
from the need for inexpensive but soundly constructed dwellings. Los
THE ARTS III
Angeles housing conditions for low-income groups are somewhat better
than those in the crowded population centers of the East; the vast area
over which the city is spread permits most families to obtain at least air
and sunlight. The city has its share of slums, nevertheless, and its prob
lem of ground rents in blighted areas. Such low-cost housing efforts as
have so far been undertaken by Los Angeles County are Federal Hous
ing projects in outlying areas. One is planned for the San Pedro area,
one on Atlantic Boulevard near Long Beach, and one in Belvedere
Gardens in east Los Angeles. Several privately financed housing projects
have been planned or are under construction, including one near Boyle
Heights and one in San Gabriel.
Well-planned towns are not a novelty in southern California. Bev
erly Hills was laid out in 1906, and there are half a dozen other
beautifully situated communities with building restrictions including
San Clemente, and San Marino. A development in connection with
these communities of the wealthy is the use of architectural juries a
group of architects, generally engaged by the developers of the area, to
pass on the suitability of proposed residences. This custom has since
been adopted by promoters of less expensive subdivisions.
The new low-cost housing projects, designed to bring well-planned
and esthetically pleasing houses within the reach of low-income families,
are of both architectural and social significance. But there are other
factors contributing to a promising outlook for Los Angeles architecture.
The restless search for the new and different, which during the twenties
resulted in such things as lavender stucco houses with Moorish minarets,
has also brought about a ready acceptance of new efforts to make archi
tecture a true expression of the life of the community. Los Angeles
lacks the strong tendency to cling to traditional paths that in many
other parts of the country has partially barred the way to new archi
tectural ideas. It is clear that a large part of Los Angeles buildings
are ill-adapted to their function and their surroundings. It is less
obvious but certainly significant that there are new ideas in the air, a
steady and intelligent adaptation of old ones, and much architectural
enthusiasm. Consequently Los Angeles seems likely to develop a sane,
well-related architecture that will benefit the whole population.
MUSICMAKERS
Music played a vital and intimate part in the everyday lives of
southern California Indians. Their music was characterized by the use
of many unfamiliar scales, resembling in their pattern no recognized
tonal system, and their primitive instruments fluctuated in pitch ; vocal
intonation was uncertain with the result that subtly differing scale suc
cessions were achieved that cannot be duplicated by the twelve fixed keys
112 LOS ANGELES
of the piano. Their patterns were more complex than those of many
other American tribes, and were at times curiously suggestive of syncopa
tion. Each song was a series of phrases or measure repetitions, often
with melodic ornaments and variations of rhythm that suggest the
plaintive Oriental music. Their instruments included flutes blown with
the mouth or nose, rattles made of shells or dried skins filled with
pebbles, crude drums, wooden clappers, and musical bows that the In
dians played so expertly that they are said to have been able to "talk"
and make love with them.
When the Indians began to come under the influence of the Fran
ciscan missionaries in the late i8th century, they were taught to intone
in Latin for church ceremonies and to play bow instruments, and the
guitar and mandolin. The Franciscans tried to induce them to give up
their tribal ceremonies and heathen music, but these persisted and have
been seen in isolated places until such recent times that the Southwest
Museum in Los Angeles has been able to preserve many songs by phono
graph recording. These records made in 1900 on cylinders are too
worn to be used today, but some of the best have been converted into
musical scores available in albums collected by Arthur Farwell.
Spanish and Mexican folk songs were the music of Los Angeles for
some seventy years after the founding of the city in 1781. Of the lazy,
carefree pueblo, Charles F. Lummis, devoted collector of southwestern
folklore, wrote : "There was no paying $5 to be seen chattering in satin
while some Diva sang her highest. There was no Grand Opera and
no fool songs. There were Songs of the Soil, and songs of poets and of
troubadours, in this far, lone, beautiful, happy land; and songs that
came over from Mother Spain and up from Stepmother Mexico. But
everybody sang; and a great many made their own songs, or verses to
other songs. . . . They felt music, and arrived at it."
When the Yankee invaders arrived in 1847, tne music-loving Cali-
fornios as usual celebrated the occasion with a song. The lyric, whose
words were Spanish with the exception of the English "Kiss me!" and
"Yes !" is translated as follows :
"Ay! here come the Yankees!
Ay! they re here, you see.
Come and let s dispense with
All formality.
"Already the senoritas
Speak English with finesse.
Kiss me! say the Yankees.
The girls all answer: Yes! "
When at first the Mexicans showed resentment toward their Amer
ican conquerors, a person familiar with native psychology offered Com
modore Jones, the Yankee commander, this bit of advice: "You have a
fine band of music ; such a thing was never before in this country. Let
THE ARTS 113
it play one hour in the Plaza each day at sunset, and I assure you it will
do more toward reconciling the people than all your written proclama
tions, which, indeed, but few of them could read." The suggestion was
taken, with satisfactory results.
The Spanish and Mexican songs lived on for a time under Amer
ican rule. But after the American influx of the seventies the younger
generations of Angelenos adopted Yankee ways and Yankee music and
the traditional melodies were gradually forgotten. Most of them exist
today only on phonograph records made by Lummis, who for the South
west Museum recorded more than 450 songs that were sung for him by
survivors of the old era.
During the fifties and sixties much of the town s musical entertain
ment was provided by military and civilian brass bands, with occasional
visits by light opera companies from Mexico and traveling minstrel
shows. Los Angeles also heard its share of gambling house "orchestras"
with Mexican-Indian players, who according to Horace Bell, chronicler
of that boisterous epoch, "sent forth most discordant sound, by no
means in harmony with the eternal jingle of gold." At the same time,
Los Angeles began singing such ballads brought in by the pioneers as
The New Eldorado.
During the seventies Los Angeles gradually shed the crudeness of
its first Yankee days and began to settle down, but it was not until the
boom times of the middle eighties, when thousands of settlers flocked in,
that Los Angeles became an American community and began to develop
the cultural institutions long established in the East. Music made by
the people was supplanted by music given by professionals in concert
halls, theatres, and opera houses. Road shows came in increasing num
bers, and virtually all of the world s then famous artists included
southern California in their tours.
The first serious effort toward the appreciation of classical music
began with a series of chamber music concerts given in private homes
by such family groups as the Heines and by the Haydn Quartet, formed
by Harley Hamilton, the city s musical leader during the eighties and
nineties. Shortly after the turn of the century Alice Coleman (active
today as Mrs. Ernest Coleman Balchelden) and Blanche Rogers (now
Mrs. Clifford Lott), two talented young pianists, took the lead in pro
moting chamber music; Miss Coleman founded Pasadena s Coleman
Concerts and Miss Rogers the Los Angeles Chamber Music Society. In
1910 Albert C. Bilicke, a local music patron, brought Adolph Tandler,
Rudolph Kopp, and Axel Simonson from Vienna; they with Ralph
Wylie, became the Brahms Quartet. The Saint-Saens Quintet was
organized in 1910; the quintet s cellist, William A. Clark, Jr., became
so interested in promoting public appreciation of music that he later
founded and financed the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
114 LOS ANGELES
The early chamber music groups helped to build up support for
symphony orchestras though most of the orchestras had brief histories.
One the Woman s Symphony Orchestra, organized in 1895 by Harley
Hamilton has continued to function and is today the oldest orchestral
group on the Pacific coast. Two years later Hamilton formed the Los
Angeles Symphony Orchestra. This organization, despite early financial
troubles, survived twenty-three consecutive seasons, after which its place
in the city s musical life was filled by the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra, founded in 1919 by William A. Clark, Jr., with L. E.
Behymer as manager. Walter Henry Rothwell was conductor until his
death in 1927. The Philharmonic Orchestra has high rank among the
orchestras of the country. Under the permanent direction of Otto
Klemperer it now (1939) plays at the Philharmonic Auditorium dur
ing the winter and at Hollywood Bowl in summer.
The Hollywood Bowl idea had its inception with the presentation
of Julius Caesar in a natural amphitheater in Beachwood Canyon,
Hollywood, May 19, 1916. The production was a charity affair,
directed by Raymon Wells and the cast included such notables as
Tyrone Power, Sr., W. De Wolf Hopper, William Farnum, Frank
Keenan, Theodore Roberts, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mae Murray.
Other dramatic ventures followed, and in 1918 the Theater Alliance
was organized under the guidance of L. E. Behymer following which
the first concert was presented in what is now Hollywood Bowl in
1922. A world-wide campaign was instituted and by 1923 sufficient
funds had been received to pay off all obligations against the new insti
tution. Many notable artists have appeared in the Bowl including
Lawrence Tibbett, who was reared in Los Angeles. The operatic and
concert baritone made his debut there in September, 1923, as Amonasro
in Aida.
Since the days when music-lovers had to sit on lap robes on the dusty
hillsides, down to 1938, attendance at musical events in the Bowl has
steadily increased. By 1939 there were seats for an audience of twenty
thousand and every modern facility for the presentation and the enjoy
ment of music. In the Bowl during the summer season are given the
Symphonies under the Stars of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
The list of operas, concerts, and other musical events given in the Bowl
during its seventeen years is impressive. Among the conductors at the
Bow r l s summer concerts have been Eugene Goossens, Alfred Hertz,
Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Bruno Walter, Ernest Bloch, Pierre Monteux,
Albert Coates, Leopold Stokowski, Willem van Hoogstraten, Sir Henry
Wood, Hans Kindler, Jose Iturbi, Bernardino Molinari, and Otto
Klemperer.
Choral groups, both secular and religious, have for years contributed
much to the city s cultural life. Among the several choral societies
THE ARTS 115
founded before 1900 was the Euterpe Male Quartet, progenitor of the
present Orpheus Club. The Women s Lyric Club, organized in 1903,
is still in existence. Preeminent today is the Los Angeles Oratorio
Society, formed in 1912 as the People s Chorus. John Smallman, who
became the conductor in 1918, exerted wide influence on choral organ-
i/ations throughout the country until his death in 1937. Active in Los
Angeles today are many excellent church choirs, including the First
Congregational Church chorus of one hundred voices, which in addition
to its church work annually presents a two-day Bach festival, including
a performance of the Messiah.
Musical education in Los Angeles schools and colleges during the
last two decades is partly responsible for the growing music-conscious
ness of the city. Nearly sixty thousand pupils are enrolled in various
music courses in Los Angeles junior and senior high schools. Most
universities and colleges in the Los Angeles area maintain choirs and
glee clubs, and the larger institutions, such as the University of Southern
California and the University of California at Los Angeles, have excel
lent bands and symphony orchestras. U.C.L.A. presents frequent con
certs by vocalists and instrumentalists and daily organ recitals that are
free to students.
Attracted by opportunities to work in sound motion pictures, singers,
instrumentalists, and composers have come to Los Angeles from many
parts of the world, many of them to make their homes here. Among the
resident musicians who have done screen and radio work in local studios
are Lawrence Tibbett, Grace Moore, Marion Talley, Nelson Eddy,
Tito Schipa, Amelita Galli-Curci, Gladys Swarthout, and Jascha
Heifetz. The composers employed by Hollywood studios have included
Jerome Kern, George Antheil, George Gershwin, Robert Russell Ben
nett, Irving Berlin, Werner Janssen, Richard Hageman, Herbert
Stothart, Sigmund Romberg, Deems Taylor, Max Steiner, Alfred New
man, and Victor Young. Today millions of people throughout the
world hear a good part of their music in movie theatres, and most of it
is produced in Hollywood.
Among composers now living in southern California but not identi
fied with the film studios are Charles Wakefield Cadman, Elinor Remick
Warren, Fannie Charles Dillon, Mary Carr Moore, Homer Grunn,
Kathleen Lockhart Manning, Joseph Clokey, Oscar Rasbach, Gertrude
Ross, William Grant Still, Edgar Varese, noted for his lavish use of
percussion; the modernist Ernest Toch; Arnold Schoenberg, and many
others. Several of the most prominent figures in the Los Angeles music
world, including Schoenberg, Toch, and Klemperer, are Germans and
Austrians.
During 1938 and 1939 one of the most active musical organizations
in the city was the Federal Music Project, formed in 1935 under Dr.
Il6 I. OS ANGELES
Bruno David Ussher to assist unemployed musicians. The Los Angeles
project, largest in California, has employed more than 900 people at a
time and maintained symphony and concert orchestras, a Negro concert
band and two white symphonic bands, operatic units, choruses, dance
orchestras, teaching units, and operatic production staffs. Operas and
symphonies have been presented commercially and music appreciation
programs have been given in public schools and city and county recrea
tional departments, and band concerts in public parks.
The grand opera unit, which had an extensive repertoire, presented
the world premiere of Felix Borowski s Fernando del Nonsentsico, a
satire on classical grand opera, and gave the first performance west of
the Mississippi of Deems Taylor s The King s Henchman. The light
opera group notably presented Auber s Fra Diavolo (with an all-Negro
cast), Gilbert and Sullivan s Pinafore and Mikado, and world premieres
of Barbecue Isle by Homer Grunn and Gay Grenadiers by C. Warner
Van Valkenburg and Vern Elliott.
The project s symphony orchestra presented numerous new Amer
ican compositions, and introduced to Los Angeles many symphonic com
positions, among them Strauss tone poem Macbeth and Gettysburg,
scored by Arthur Robinson with lyrics by Morris Ruger. An outstand
ing success of the Los Angeles project, working in conjunction with the
Federal Theatre Project, was the presentation of its Negro chorus of
eighty voices (Carlyle Scott, founder-director), in Hall Johnson s folk-
opera Run Little Chillun.
Popular music ragtime followed by jazz came to Los Angeles
after the turn of the century, when "hot" music from the South started
a national craze. The early careers of many band leaders and musicians,
and popular singers are associated with the city. Paul Whiteman used
to play at the beach resorts with an itinerant band whose members
walked about among the crowds with a big can into which dancers tossed
coins; Bing Crosby was hired by Whiteman as one of the "Three
Rhythm Boys," then went to the East where he gained renown in radio
before he was "rediscovered" by Hollywood; Kenny Baker, Abe Lyman,
Gus Arnheim, Jimmy Grier, Donald Novis, and Mildred Bailey have
also worked here in their earlier days.
Popular song composers from Tin Pan Alley in New York began a
trek to Hollywood in the twenties, when studios began making sound
pictures. Songs are usually written to order for a particular film.
Many of the studios have close tie-ups with large sheet-music houses,
whose branch offices in Los Angeles publish songs from motion pictures.
Because of the wide circulation of the movies and the incessant
"plugging" of hit songs from current films on radio programs, the music
produced in Hollywood is probably heard by more people throughout
the world than all the music composed in Tin Pan Alley.
THE ARTS 117
Los Angeles ranks second in the nation in the production of popular
phonograph records, which are manufactured in local plants maintained
by eastern companies. Transcriptions of musical shows for radio pro
grams are also produced in large numbers. These "platters" have
replaced many "live talent" programs and find a rapidly growing market
in foreign countries as well as at home. Variety estimates that between
85 and 90 per cent of the transcriptions exported to English-speaking
countries are made in Hollywood.
LITERATURE
In sheer number of writers and quantity of work produced, Los
Angeles is today a literary capital of the first magnitude. Scores of well-
known authors and hundreds of obscure ones live in and around the
city, turning out many millions of words annually for books, pulp and
slick magazines, motion pictures, the stage, and radio broadcasts. But as
to the quality of its output, and the extent of its truly native literature,
Los Angeles has yet to attain the stature of a true literary center. Few
of its writers are mentioned in standard histories of American letters;
few have identified themselves and their works with the local scene;
and of those who have, most have been undistinguished.
The reason for this is that culturally the area is comparatively young.
During almost the whole of its first hundred years Los Angeles was a
small provincial town in remote country. Communication with the
outside world, and especially with the artistic world, was slow and in
frequent. The townsfolk, first the Spaniards and Mexicans and then
the early American settlers, had neither time nor inclination for literary
activities. As a result, the period from the founding of the city in 1781
to the publication of Ramona, more than a century later, was almost
wholly unproductive of anything that can properly be termed literature.
Travelers journals, memoirs of early settlers, descriptive accounts
of the region, and local newspaper writings were virtually the only fruits
of these long years. The first person to describe the Los Angeles area
was Father Juan Crespi, whose diary is a valuable record of the Portola
expedition of 1769-70. The earliest known description by an American
did not appear until almost forty years later, when William Shaler
(1773-1833), a Boston sea captain, wrote a report of his visit to the
California coast for the American Register. At long intervals other
accounts of the strange and little-known land followed. Among the
most interesting was the description of San Pedro Harbor in Richard
Henry Dana s (1815-1882) Two Years Before the Mast, first published
in 1840. Dana was not at all impressed by his first sight of the region:
"We all agreed that it was the worst place we had seen yet." It was
while the Pilgrim lay at San Pedro that the brutal flogging of two
Il8 LOS ANGELES
sailors took place as recorded in his book. Other accounts of southern
California appeared in Alfred Robinson s (1806-1895) Life in Cali
fornia (1846), one of the first books on this region to reach a large
audience in the United States; Edwin Bryant s (1805-1869) What I
Saw in California (1848), an entertaining record of the author s ex
periences with the American Army of occupation; and A Flower from
the Golden Land by Ludwig Salvator (1847-1915), an Austrian arch
duke who visited southern California in 1876 and whose book was the
first work on Los Angeles to have wide European circulation.
Outstanding among pre-Ramona publications is the uproarious
Reminiscences of a Ranger (1881) by Major Horace Bell (1830-
1918), a fiery, crusading editor with a flair for Gargantuan humor and
caricature. Bell s rollicking accounts of events and personalities in the
boisterous Los Angeles of the fifties and sixties are generally unortho
dox and questionable, but they probably give a truer picture of those
incredible times than any sober chronicle can. A further volume of
Bell s memoirs, On the Old West Coast, was published posthumously in
1930.
The first local newspaper, La Estrella de Los Angeles (The Star of
Los Angeles), deserves mention not only for having been the town s
chief source of reading matter for almost three decades, but also because
it contains writing that is peculiarly expressive of the life and times.
Founded in 1851, the paper was printed in English and Spanish until
1855, then in English only until its demise in 1879. Local news was
often reported with considerable humor and even sarcasm, as in the issue
of February 19, 1853, which related: "On Tuesday of last week we had
four weddings, two funerals, one street fight with knives, a lynch court,
two men flogged, and a serenade by a callithumpian band ; also a fist fight
and one man tossed in a blanket. If any of the flourishing up-country
towns can hold a candle to that, let them do it forthwith or forever
hold their peace." Editorials were frequently vigorous and full of vivid
vituperation, particularly during the Civil War when the paper, like
most of the town, openly favored the South. An issue of 1863 contained
the blast: "Abe Lincoln honest ! Why his every act, from the hour of
his departure from Springfield to Washington to begin his saturnalia of
blood, till the prsent day, has been replete with gross and palpable de
ception. . . . When an obscure, fourth-rate lawyer at the Illinois capi-
tol, pettifogging for a livelihood and retailing stale jokes and anecdotes
for pastime, he was, probably, Honest Abe. . . . But association with
corruption has changed the man." That the booster spirit was rampant
even in those early days is shown in an item of 1873, entitled "What
Nature Has Done" (for Los Angeles) : "She has given us the love-
chanting mockingbird, the canary ... to sing in our groves, ... She
has given us ... the lime, the orange, and the olive, and in splendid
THE ARTS 119
wedding has blended together all that is good, harmonious or lovely in
the earth, the sea and the air."
The Star ceased publication in the late 1870 $, and soon afterward
there appeared the Porcupine, a weekly "journalistic scourge" edited by
the redoubtable Horace Bell. This paper of the eighties and nineties
crusaded for all kinds of civic improvements, muckraked all manner of
graft and scandal, and violently attacked various public figures, from the
local sheriff to the Prince of Wales. In an era otherwise devoid of any
good writing, the Porcupine deserves some mention for its masterful
invective.
During the eighties and nineties appeared a number of books designed
to acquaint the eastern traveler or settler with the wonders of Cali
fornia. Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901), grandfather of the Nordhoff
of Mutiny on the Bounty fame, wrote five books about California, the
most important, California for Health, Pleasure, and Residence (1882),
giving a detailed account of the colony settlements, the cultivation of the
grapes, oranges, and olives of southern California, and the methods of
irrigation. Our Italy (1892) by Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900),
describes among other things the commercial and climatic assets of south
ern California, the price of land, and the prospects for laborers and
small farmers. In Old Mexico and Her Lost Provinces ( 1883) William
Henry Bishop ( 1847-1928), devotes a chapter to Los Angeles, dismissing
it as "only another San Jose." Between the Gates (1878), by Ben
jamin F. Taylor (1819-1887), includes a romantic and florid account of
a trip to southern California. Theodore S. Van Dyke (1842-1923)
wrote three books on the Los Angeles region: Rifle, Rod and Gun in
California (1890) includes a technical description of southern Cali
fornia game; Millionaires of a Day (1890) is an account of the great
southern California boom; and Southern California (1896) describes
in detail almost every aspect of topography, climate, and game, as well
as "hints" on migrating to California.
The publication in 1884 of Helen Hunt Jackson s (1831-1885)
novel, Ramona, marked the real beginning of Los Angeles literature,
making the fiction-reading public conscious for the first time of southern
California s life and historical background. It created a demand for
works based on this locale, and acquainted writers with the remarkable
possibilities of the region. At the same time, however, the city was
undergoing a radical change in character, which was soon to change the
scene Mrs. Jackson had described but make it far more receptive to
cultural development. In place of the uncouth and illiterate small town
of Mexican and early American da\ s, there was now a rapidly-growing
and comparatively articulate city, connected by rail with the eastern
United States and receiving therefrom not only immigrants but also
cultural influences.
120 LOS ANGELES
Mrs. Jackson, a New Englander, came to Los Angeles in the early
eighties to investigate the condition of the Mission Indians and to write
a series of articles on southern California for Century Magazine. Her
articles, later published in a book called Glimpses of California and the
Missions (1883), are a storehouse of the results of original research that
has been utilized and even plagiarized. It was her sympathy for the
Indians, however, and in fact for the old order as a whole in its conflict
with American aggression, that led to the writing of Ramona. "I am
going to write a novel," Mrs. Jackson is reputed to have said, "in which
will be set forth some Indian experiences in a way to move people s
hearts." Much of the work was done while she was a guest at the
charming old adobe mansion of Don Antonio F. Coronel, which stood
on what is now the bustling corner of Alameda and Seventh Streets.
In 1885, a few months after the publication of her book, "H.H." died
in San Francisco, unaware that she had produced a romance which was
to play an incalculable part in attracting people to southern California.
It is perhaps a commentary on the youthfulness of southern Cali
fornia literature that the first novel to come out of this region is still by
all odds the best-known and best-loved. Despite its artistic faults, its
dated style, and Victorian sentimentality, Ramona has gone through
more than 130 printings; it has been filmed time and again, in silent,
sound, and color motion pictures; it has been played on the stage, and is
performed annually in a pageant at Hemet.
Ramona can be said to have inaugurated the "local color" school of
writing that dominated Los Angeles literary circles until well into the
twentieth century. This is not to say that writers of that so-called
middle period followed the Ramona formula; on the contrary, they pro
duced few historical romances. But most of their work whether
novels, short stories, poems, or articles was based on picturesque aspects
of the local life and scene, especially old-time ones: legends, Indians,
padres, ranchos, animal and plant life, beautiful scenery all viewed
through fond, sentimental eyes in which quaintness and romance loomed
large.
The leader of the regional school was Charles Fletcher Lummis
(1859-1928), literary oracle of Los Angeles for three decades. A New
Englander and a newspaperman, Lummis arrived in southern California
in 1884 after walking 3,500 miles on a roundabout route from Cin
cinnati. He proceeded to steep himself in southwestern life with such
energy and devotion that he soon became more "native" than most born
Californians. He wrote constantly ("too many hours a day," as Mary
Austin put it) about California, Arizona, and New Mexico; he
founded and edited a magazine, served as City Librarian for five years,
helped found the Southwest Museum, founded the Landmarks Club,
collected Indian and Spanish relics and folksongs, laboring for his
THE ARTS 121
adopted country with staggering enthusiasm. He became paralyzed for
a time and just before the end of his life went blind. Lummis maga
zine, The Land of Sunshine later called Out West, crystallized and
directed western literary trends by encouraging California writers to
take advantage of the wealth of inspiration in their own environment.
"The local field," he wrote in 1897, "is literally boundless the longer
I look at it the deeplier I feel this. What we do lack is the people to
exploit it and I am now trying to vaccinate a few of the really com
petent people we have on the Coast and to get them to group." A
large number of southern California literary folk, whom he thus "vac
cinated," revolved around Lummis, forming a virtual salon at his
home, El Alisal, which he built largely with his own hands on the
bank of the Arroyo Seco in Highland Park.
Lummis was by no means a first-rate literary artist, but he was a
good storyteller and reporter, with a style that was virile though senti
mental. Of his numerous books, including The Spanish Pioneers
(1893), The Enchanted Burro (1897), d Bronco Pegasus (1928),
and Flowers of Our Lost Romance (1929), few are read today, but
they are likely to retain value through the years as repositories of south
western lore.
A similar appraisal can be made of the best works of other writers
belonging to the regional traditions: Charles Francis Saunders
(1859 ), George Wharton James (1858-1923), and John Steven Mc-
Groarty (1862 ), to name a few. Some fiction was produced by this
group and also by resident and visiting writers who were not identified
with the regional school. Most of such work, however, was run-of-the-
mill stuff which has long since been forgotten. Among the few authors
who dealt competently with the southern California scene were Ger
trude Atherton (1857 )> Peter B. Kyne (1880 ), and Mary Austin
(1868-1934). The latter was a member of the Lummis colony during
her early years of writing, and among her first ventures into print were
several poems in The Land of Sunshine.
Even before Lummis death in 1928 the local-color school had
begun to decline. Its passing was due in some degree to the city s
change of character, and even more to the international change in
literary values. The boom of the twenties metamorphosed Los Angeles
in a few years from a medium-sized city with a fairly stable population
to a metropolis peopled by heterogeneous multitudes. Many things
dear to the hearts of old-time Angelenos were submerged, among them
the physical evidences of the region s past history, as well as many of its
distinctive folkways. The national literary taste, moreover, was switch
ing from sentimental romanticism to realism, and this trend naturally
affected southern California.
Today, and in fact since the post-war period, Los Angeles has
122 LOS ANGELES
become a huge word factory. Fiction, particularly, is turned out on a
mass-production scale. Writers from all over the world have been
drawn here by the motion pictures and later by the radio studios, as
well as by the climate, the natural scene and the growing cultural
activity. The work produced by these comparative newcomers is so
varied that most of it can be classed as "Los Angeles" only because it
happens to be written here, and most of it as "literature" only by cour
tesy. The latter is especially true of film and radio fiction, not only
because it is ephemeral but also because much of it is rewrite work and
hence not original. But the products of the Hollywood writers reach an
audience of millions, thus giving them more influence than authors as a
group ever had before. Strangely enough, despite their power and the
lavish salaries that many of them receive, screen and radio scribes re
main virtually anonymous to the general public, their names being over
shadowed by those of the stars, producers, and directors.
To give some idea of the varied array of writers who now live or
have lived in and about Los Angeles in recent years, it is perhaps suf
ficient to name outstanding or typical figures in the different fields :
Upton Sinclair (1878 ), crusading novelist and pamphleteer, whose
sixty books have been translated into an average of thirteen foreign
languages apiece, making him one of the most widely-read of living
authors; Zane Grey (1874-1939), prolific writer of two-gun Western
novels; Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 ), creator of Tarzan; Willard
Huntington Wright (1888-1939), who signed himself S. S. Van Dine
in the detective stories whose hero was Philo Vance; Earl Derr Big-
gers (1884-1933), whose detective was Charlie Chan; Jim Tully
(1891 ), hobo author of Beggars of Life (1924) and Jarnegan
(1926) ; Rupert Hughes (1872 ), author of many short stones, novels
and a life of George Washington; Hamlin Garland (1860-1940),
whose many books, among them Son of the Middle Border (1917),
have gained him the title "grand old man of American letters"; Will
Rogers (1879-1935), cowboy philosopher, columnist, and author of
The Illiterate Digest (1924) and Letters of a Self-made Diplomat to
His President (1926); Eric Temple Bell (1883), of the Cali
fornia Institute of Technology, who has written adventure novels
such as The Purple Sapphire (1924) under the pseudonym of John
Taine, as well as Men of Mathematics (1937) and other scientific best
sellers; Paul Jordan Smith (1885 )> scholar and critic; June Hilde-
garde Planner (1899 ), author of A Tree in Bloom (1924) and
Time s Profile (1929); Lewis Browne (1897 )> historian and pro
ducer of Stranger Than Fiction and The Story of the Jews (1925-26).
Dozens of other names, equally prominent or deserving of mention,
might be included. Harry Carr (1877-1936), former Los Angeles
THE ARTS 123
columnist, wrote that "The Big Leaguers began to come in during
the latter days of silent motion-pictures and the talkies washed them
hither in a flood. A large part of the [country s] literary population
now lives in Los Angeles." Obviously, this legion of writers does not
constitute a distinctively southern California "group." Not only is the
work produced here extremely varied, including as it does virtually
every type of writing from pulp fiction to scientific treatises, but also
the bulk of it is almost wholly lacking in indigenous quality. It could
just as well be written anywhere else.
Along with this great heterogeneous mass of writing that Los
Angeles pours out, a certain amount of local color material continues to
appear. A few of the stories, novels, and other works of this type
possess real merit. Notable examples are the desert stories of Edwin
Corle (1906 ) in his volume entitled Mojave (1934), an d his novel,
Fig Tree John (1935), which relates with artistry the story of an
Indian s futile hostility toward the encroachments of the whites. In
recent years the Lummis tradition of regional writing has been re
vived to some extent in a more realistic form by the magazine West-
ways, published since 1909 by the Automobile Club of Southern Cali
fornia and called Touring Topics until 1934. Since the beginning of
Phil Townsend Hanna s (1896 ) editorship in 1927, this monthly
has included some fiction, and has given special emphasis to material
of a regional nature.
The outlook for the emergence of a distinctive regional literature
seems favorable. For one thing, southern California offers the writer
unusual themes and varied natural settings ; a stimulating and romantic
history as well as a dynamic contemporary life; and endlessly varied
people in process of amalgamation ; a wealth of curious customs, peculiar
religions, bizarre political movements, and changing social modes. An
other and perhaps a more important consideration betokening the
eventual development of southern California literature is that the num
ber of native-born Angelenos is rapidly increasing. Of the writers
mentioned in this article, almost none are natives of the region; in fact.
only a relatively small percentage of Los Angeles residents of middle
age were born here. Thus the two or three generations of writers
who have made up the city s brief literary history have been essentially
outsiders; their "old home" background has inevitably remained a part
of them. But for the constantly growing numbers of native sons and
daughters, the only background is southern California. It is their
country by right of heritage, not adoption, and it seems reasonable to
expect that some of them will write about it with a deeper insight
than has so far been manifested.
124 LOS ANGELES
ART AND ARTISTS
In their designs and handicrafts the Indians of the Los Angeles
area ranked among the less developed North American tribes. A peace
ful and docile people, they moved about indolently on the mild, sunny
beaches of the coast, feeding on the rich supplies of shellfish and shelter
ing themselves by the most primitive means. The occasional pottery
and weaving produced in this low-grade paradise achieved little dis
tinction in pattern or craftsmanship.
These natives and others brought from nearby sections were taken
by the Spaniards into the missions, where they were taught to labor
in the fields and buildings. The Indian neophytes, under the tutelage
of the padres, painted decorations upon the walls of the missions
and carved church implements, ornaments, and figurines. In this
work the indigenous spirit became oddly intermingled with European
styles and conceptions: the mixture is perhaps best exemplified in the
Stations of the Cross series painted on sail-cloth at the San Gabriel
Mission before 1779. The mission fathers and neophytes also pro
duced plaques, iron grille work, costumes, tools, textiles, embroideries,
and stamped and colored leather work.
In addition to the murals and carvings executed locally, the mis
sions also contained paintings and sculptures from Mexico and Spain;
a number of these works are now in Los Angeles institutions.
The dons and senoritas of the great ranches, which came into
existence shortly after the establishment of the missions, had their por
traits painted by wandering Spanish and Mexican artists, and pur
chased silks, embroideries, and household implements from the Spanish
homeland and, later, from traders whose ships had touched the ports
of China, Russia, and Peru. Silversmiths and harness makers tooled
horse trappings and decorated them with silver inlay work in the
Mexican style. This influence later made itself felt in the crafts of the
early Yankee settlers.
When the expansion of northern California surged forward in the
1850 $, a number of eastern landscape painters mounted the great
ranges of the Sierras and descended into the vast valleys of Sacra
mento and San Joaquin, painting enormous canvases which have since
come to be known as the work of the "Heroic School." This phase of
American painting, however, scarcely touched the Los Angeles region,
and it was not until the i88o s, after the coming of the railroads, that
local art began its modern development.
William Wachtel arrived in southern California in 1883 and strove
to capture the quality of light and color in the neighboring countryside.
During the next few years a number of art clubs and organizations
sprang up in and about Los Angeles. The Ruskin Art Club was estab-
THE ARTS 125
lished in 1888; the Los Angeles School of Art opened in 1890; and
the Pasadena Academy of Fine Arts in 1897; an ^ m I 93 tne Los
Angeles Municipal Art Commission was inaugurated.
William Wendt, who settled in California in 1903, painted many
landscapes depicting this region in the different seasons of the year. A
contemporary of Wendt, J. Bond Francisco, composed notable land
scapes of canyons and wooded mountainsides. The influence of these
men, especially that of Wendt, survives today among many California
landscapists whose favorite study is the play of sunlight in their locality.
Among these sound conservatives are Hanson Puthuff, Jack Wilkinson
Smith, Edgar Alwin Payne, Bwijamin Chambers Brown, and Marion
Kavanaugh Wachtel. Other local painters in the traditional style are
Alexander Warshawsky, Emile Jean Kosa, Jr., Arthur Millier, Roscoe
Schrader, Dana Bartlett, Alson Clark, F. Tolles Chamberlin, Ejnar
Hansen, Orrin A. White, Paul Lauritz, the late George K. Brandriff,
Clyde Forsythe, Duncan Gleason, the late Gordon Coutts, and Mabel
Alvarez.
Before the World War, Guy Rose was doing important work in
the impressionist manner, and S. Macdonald Wright had founded a
new movement based on his theories of color relations. In these pre-
War years the Southwest Museum was organized (1903), with its
collection of early California art material, and the Los Angeles Mu
seum of History, Science, and Art, showing permanent groups of
European and American paintings and sculptures, was formally opened
in 1913. The Huntington Art Gallery, established in 1919, is re
nowned for its collection of eighteenth century British art.
The most impressive aspect of Los Angeles art history, however,
has been the lively flow of experimentation, both in technique and ma
terials, which has reached its highest level during the past five years.
Local artists have shown a creative interest in the new forms emanating
from New York and Paris, and large public works of art have made
their appearance in the parks, streets, and buildings of Los Angeles.
Murals in fresco, tempera, and oil, mosaics, inlays, and monumental
sculptures have been sponsored by private agencies and by the Federal
Art Project and by the Section of Fine Arts of the U. S. Treasury
Department. The "synchromism" of S. Macdonald Wright and the
"postsurrealism" of Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg, Grace Clements,
and Elizabeth Mills are local vanguard movements which have achieved
recognition beyond the borders of the United States.
Modern schools include among the expressionists, Bear Newman,
Boris Deutsch, Jerre Murry, Denny Winters, and Herman Cherry;
among the abstractionists, Arthur Durston, Helen Klokke, Olinka
Hrdy, Kaye Waters, Warren Newcomb, and Elise Armitage; and
among the surrealists, Carlos Dyer, Ben Berlin, and Charles Mattox.
126 LOS ANGELES
Other artists of the modern school are Nicholas Brigante, Rex Slinkard,
Fred Sexton, Conrad Buff, Jack Stark, and Peter Krasnow. Al King,
Don Totten, and James Redmond are influenced by S. Macdonald
Wright.
Outstanding among Los Angeles painters of the American scene
are Millard Sheets and Barse Miller; Paul Sample, Lee Blair, Fletcher
Martin, Tom Craig, Phil Dike, Dan Lutz, and Ruth Miller Fracker
also work in this popular genre. The late Frank Tenney Johnson was
widely known for his romantic depictions of western range life and his
night scenes. Kathryn Leighton has made an important recording of
Indian life. Nicolai Fechin is a port&itist and figure painter in the
traditional manner. The decorative tendency in modern painting is
exemplified in the work of Jean Goodwin, Arthur Ames, Nathalie
Newking, Buckley MacGurrin, Althea Ulber, Suzanne Miller, Viktor
von Pribosic, and Hideo Date, who shows a Japanese influence.
The Mexican painters Orozco and Rivera have had an important
effect upon Los Angeles mural painting. Another stimulating influence
has been the Federal Art Project, which has commissioned murals for
scores of public buildings. It is impossible to list here the many excel
lent murals executed in Los Angeles during the past few years. The
history of California, the myths of the Aztecs and other tribes, scenes
from contemporary life, and symbolic and cultural themes decorate
profusely the walls of the city. Among outstanding works are the
decorations of Dean Cornwell at the Los Angeles Public Library and
of Charles Kassler in the Library patio ; S. Macdonald Wright s Mans
Two-fold Development at the Santa Monica Public Library; Jose
Clemente Orozco s Prometheus at Pomona College, Claremont; Mac-
Gurrin s Signing of the Magna Carta at the Hall of Records, Los
Angeles; and the panels of Hugo Ballin at B nai B rith Temple, Los
Angeles. Other local muralists of note are Giovanni Napolitano,
Willy Pogany, Leo Katz, Suzanne Miller, Barse Miller, Conrad Buff,
Millard Sheets, and Lorser Feitelson.
In sculpture, too, Los Angeles has witnessed a remarkable growth
in recent years. The local craftsmen, George Stanley, Archibald
Garner, and Roger Noble Burnham participated in designing the 4O-foot
Astronomers Monument in Griffith Park, and have contributed many
other works. Henry Lion, the late David Edstrom, Merrel Gage,
Donal Hord, William Atkinson, Eugenia Everett, Julia Bracken
Wendt, and Ada May Sharpless are Los Angeles sculptors whose tech
niques vary from solid conservatism to the most advanced experimental
handling.
In conclusion, mention should be made of Los Angeles commercial
art and industrial design. In the Hollywood studios and workshops
every phase of decorative technique has been thoroughly studied, and
THE ARTS 127
many innovations have been introduced there. The animated cartoons
of Walt Disney, in whose studios many local artists have been em
ployed, are known throughout the civilized world. Recognized indus
trial designers include Walter Beermann, Joseph Sinel, and Kem
Weber. The intense activity of the Hollywood workshops has been
an important factor in making Los Angeles a new art center of the
West.
THE THEATRE
The story of the theatre in Los Angeles is largely a record of the
appearances of road shows, ephemeral stock companies, and the rise and
fall in popularity of playhouses, producers, and performers. Instead
of showing continuous native growth, with sustained local traditions,
it is for the most part a history of periods and personalities, succeeding
one another with little continuity or interdependence.
During the almost seventy years of Spanish and Mexican rule,
religious plays were the sole dramatic fare. Introduced by the Fran
ciscan missionaries and presented only at Christmas time, they usually
depicted the journey of the shepherds to Bethlehem, their encounter
with the devil along the way, Satan s final overthrow by the Arcangel
Miguel, and the shepherds proceeding to the Christ child. Typical
of this kind of drama were Los Pastores (The Shepherds), which was
enlivened by songs, guitar music, and comic incidents ; and La Pastorela
(The Pastoral), written by Padre Florencio of Soledad Mission. The
actors were amateurs. A nativity drama similar to these is still pre
sented annually at the Old Mission Plaza Church in Los Angeles. In
the last performance of La Pastorela, given on Christmas Eve of 1861,
the role of the Arcangel Miguel was played by Arturo Bandini, a
prominent don. Part of his traditional costume, a pair of curled tissue-
paper wings, so aroused the curiosity of a nearsighted old lady that she
held up a lighted taper to inspect them. The wings caught fire and
blazed away on "Miguel s" back until "Satan" rushed to the rescue.
With the influx of Yankees in the middle of the nineteenth cen
tury, the religious pageants were soon overshadowed by a different type
of stage entertainment. As early as 1847 outdoor performances were
given by a company of strolling comedians, the vanguard of countless
traveling troupes, whose frequent visits by 1858, warranted the build
ing of a small playhouse, Stearns Hall, on South Spring Street. Here,
in 1859, the California Minstrels and Burlesque Troupe, with "Ethi
opian Comedians," performed to enthusiastic audiences. In the same
year Don Juan Temple, an enterprising Yankee, constructed a combined
market and auditorium, where the Great Star Company of Stark &
Ryer of San Francisco presented Shakespearean drama and the plays of
128 LOS ANGELES
Von Kotzebue, a favorite European playwright of the time. Other
troupes appeared occasionally during the sixties, most of them coming by
ship from San Francisco, the theatrical metropolis of the West. Sched
ules of performances were flexible, allowing for the missing of a boat
by a star or troupe or for late arrival of the passenger vessel.
Not until 1870 did Los Angeles possess its first real theatre, the
Merced at 418 North Main Street, at which were given such plays as
Esmeralda, The Danites, and M Liss. The theatre was built by
William Abbott and named for his Mexican wife, and its opening was
advertised in the Los Angeles Star:
MERCED THEATRE
GRAND INAUGURATION
The opening of the New [Abbott s] Theatre will take place on Friday,
December 30, 1870, when a Grand Vocal and Instrumental Concert
will be given by the 2ist Regiment (Wilmington) Band, assisted by
several well-known amateurs, who have kindly volunteered their
services.
But there was still no regular stage entertainment. The arrival of
a troupe was an event. The Dally News of January 18, 1871, reported
that there was a "woeful lack of amusements" in Los Angeles and
that "This has prompted some of the fun-loving spirits to offer on
Thursday night, at the Merced, a mirth-provoking exhibition wherein
the effect of laughing gas upon different persons will be practically
illustrated."
Such groups of fun-loving spirits appeared in increasing numbers
during the seventies. Since the town was not yet large enough to
support regular theatrical groups for more than short engagements, local
social clubs gave "readings," amateur minstrel shows, and one-act plays.
Outstanding among these community enterprises was the annual series
of entertainments directed by George A. Dobinson and called "Uni
tarian Thursdays," many of the performers being members of the
Unitarian Church. These Victorian "amateur hours" were given at
Union Hall on Spring Street near Temple, and continued into the
next decade.
The spectacular growth in population during the booming eighties
changed Los Angeles from a rough-and-ready frontier town with a
limited potential audience to an increasingly important theatrical center,
visited more and more by traveling troupes. In 1884 the city was
ready for its second theatre building, the Grand Opera House on Main
Street south of First. Built by Ozro W. Childs, a local business man,
and seating 1,200 people, this was the second largest theatre on the
Pacific coast. It was opened with Mile. Rhea in The School for
Scandal. Handbills warned that children in arms would not be ad
mitted; the mayor addressed the audience, and intermissions were en-
THE ARTS 129
livened with such tunes as "O, Fair Dove! O, Fond Dove!," "Chimes
of Corneville," and "Sailor s Joy."
Theatre programs collected by George A. Dobinson, and now pre
served at the Los Angeles Public Library, furnish a better picture of
the period than any other source. They are filled with society and
theatre gossip, advertisements, and columns of what at the time may
have been risque jokes: "Many of the costumes worn by the ladies
at the Grand last night were extremely elegant. . . . The orchestra
played several new numbers. Good work, keep it up. . . . The iced
water passed through the audience last night was a great accommoda
tion to the ladies, if not to the gentlemen. . . . Delinquent subscribers
are hereby warned not to let their daughters wear this paper for a
bustle, as there is considerable due on it, and they might take cold."
By the middle eighties Los Angeles had attained a place on the
nation s theatrical map as a regular one-week stand, in which shows
were billed "direct from New York." Booth and Barrett in Shake
spearean repertoire (1887) grossed $17,936 in one week a take that
many a modern road show might envy. Another good-sized theatre,
the Los Angeles, on Spring Street between Second and Third Streets,
was built in 1888, and here during the next few years, the city saw such
stars as Maurice Barrymore, E. H. Sothern, Lillian Russell, and Sarah
Bernhardt. Plays included such European standbys as Camille, Riche
lieu, Oliver Twist, and La Tosca; and, among American favorites,
Only a Farmer s Daughter, The Wages of Sin, and Col. Mulberry
Sellers.
In the early nineties the stream of imported productions was
gradually supplemented by the productions of local professional stock
companies. The first of these home-town ventures was launched in
1893 at the Park Theatre (formerly Hazard s Pavilion) at Fifth and
Olive Streets, where the Philharmonic Auditorium now stands. This
company was short-lived. Similar enterprises appeared during the next
few years, prospered for a time and collapsed. None attained anything
like permanence until after the turn of the century, but their number
steadily grew. Vaudeville, too, began to rival the legitimate stage in
the nineties, the Orpheum opening as a vaudeville house in 1894.
Sarah Bernhardt appeared at the Orpheum in two of her three Los
Angeles engagements. It was during the first of these engagements
that she was injured in an automobile accident an accident seemingly
trivial at the time, that later caused the amputation of a leg. Road
shows continued, however, to provide the city s most substantial dramatic
fare. Performances given in Los Angeles around 1900 included Trilby.
The Prisoner of Zenda, Peck s Bad Boy, The Wolves of New York,
The Country Girl, Charley s Aunt, and numerous Shakespearean plays;
and among the popular actors of the time were Helena Modjeska, in
I3O LOS ANGELES
whose honor a Los Angeles street is named, William Gillette, Trixie
Friganza, Harry Langdon, George M. Cohan, William and Dustin
Farnum, and Lionel Barrymore. Many of these remained to join local
stock companies and later the films.
During this period of lavish road shows, local stock companies
began to compete more and more successfully with them. The arrival
of Oliver Morosco in Los Angeles in 1899 marked the opening of an
era in which stock companies increased in importance until they domi
nated the local theatrical scene. Though Morosco leased the Burbank
Theatre and at first presented the usual Eastern touring companies,
he soon formed his own stock company an organization that was ex
ceedingly popular during the first quarter of the century. Then in
1909 Morosco took over the Belasco Theatre, which had been opened
in 1904 by Fred Belasco brother of David, and came to the fore as a
nationally important producer.
The Belasco attracted wide comment with a series of notable revivals,
and new plays. "Leading ladies came and went but the pueblo would
never consent to the changing of the leading man: he was Lewis
Stone. . . ." Outstanding productions included When Knighthood Was
in Flower, The Admirable Crichton, Zaza, Candida, Girl of the Golden
West, and Undertow. The last was among the plays first produced
here that later became New York hits.
Between 1904 and 1915 the theatre in Los Angeles attained its
majority. A dozen playhouses were doing a profitable business. Plays
were capably staged and performed, and as a producing center of new
dramas the city was surpassed only by New York. Even the religious
motif in drama reappeared with the opening in 1912 at San Gabriel
of John Steven McGroarty s Mission Play, which was destined to re
main a favorite for two decades.
The little theatre movement, which swept the country between
1910 and 1918, led to the formation of numerous amateur organiza
tions, most of which were of little significance because they attempted
the same kind of drama that was done more expertly by traveling pro
fessional troupes and the motion pictures. One exception, however,
was the Pasadena Community Playhouse group, founded by Gilmor
Brown in 1917. The Playhouse soon began to attract talent from all
over the United States and it became one of the outstanding little
theatres. Because of its policy of presenting both premieres of the work
of leading dramatists as well as new plays by obscure writers, it has
been an active force in stimulating local drama.
But in Los Angeles as elsewhere, motion pictures affected the legiti
mate stage far more drastically than did the little theatre movement.
By 1912 film companies were drawing many actors from the ranks of
stage and vaudeville performers. During the World War, as movies
THE ARTS 131
attracted increasingly large audiences, the local stage entered a decline,
and by the end of the war most of the old stock companies had failed
and there were virtually no visits by road companies.
This set-back was only temporary. During the prosperous twenties
there was room for both films and stage. "The road" revived, little
theatres flourished. Two pageant plays were produced : the Pilgrimage
Play, a presentation of the life of Christ, given annually in an open-air
theatre in Hollywood Hills; and the Ramona Pageant, based on Helen
Hunt Jackson s novel and performed at Hemet each year since 1923.
The biggest event in recent theatrical history was the opening in
1924 of the Biltmore Theatre with a $10 top price, tickets printed in
gold leaf, and Will Rogers as master of ceremonies. The production
was Sally, Irene, and Mary. In the next three years seven theatres
were built : the Figueroa Playhouse, El Capitan, the new Belasco, the
Mayan, the Hollywood Playhouse, the Hollywood Music Box, and the
Vine Street. The opening of these theatres started the greatest the
atrical activity Los Angeles has ever known.
One of the most successful ventures of this period was headed by
Henry Duffy, whose policy was to present current New York hits.
Beginning with the El Capitan in 1927, he soon had a string of theatres
along the Pacific coast that included the President in Los Angeles and
the Playhouse in Hollywood. Among his actors were Charles Ray,
Will Rogers, Reginald Denny, Colleen Moore, Joe E. Brown, Billie
Burke, and Francis Lederer. Edward Everett Horton organized an
other successful stock company, with himself as producer and leading
man. Other outstanding producers included Louis Macloon and his
wife, Lillian Albertson.
Stock activity was carried on by Morosco s company, which gave the
first presentation of Ann Nichols Abie s Irish Rose; it ran thirty-three
weeks in Los Angeles before becoming a record-breaker in New York.
But with the disbanding of this troupe in 1927 an era was ended, and
most of the stock companies that arose thenceforth had a definite link
with the film industry. In Hollywood some of the new companies were
organized primarily to exploit the name value of motion picture stars.
The local stage was so prosperous that in 1927 movie exhibitors began
to complain about the competition "in the very citadel of the cinema."
It was believed that this condition was caused in a large degree by the
public s slackening interest in silent films, but even after the introduc
tion of talkies, the legitimate theatre continued to flourish. Between
1928 and 1932 were some of the best seasons on record. While the
1931-32 theatrical season was good from the public s viewpoint, pro
ducers were hard hit by financial conditions brought on by the general
economic depression. During these years some of the best acting talent
132 LOS ANGELES
in the world, drawn here by Hollywood studios, was available for stage
work.
Not until the full force of the depression was felt in southern Cali
fornia, beginning about 1932, did local drama commence a marked
decline. Stock companies collapsed and road importations dwindled
almost to the vanishing point. Even those perennial local performances,
the Pilgrimage Play and the Mission Play, failed to open. But the
little theatres, particularly the Pasadena Community Playhouse, the
Beverly Hills Theatre, and the Gateway remained active for many
months, supplying the bulk of the legitimate drama. Some of the
amateur groups were organized to attract students who washed to enter
the films, but instead they frequently drew established movie actors
who could not get work in the studios. Productions at the Playhouse
in Pasadena, for instance, were the best in its history because of the
talent available.
An interest in working-class drama was a noteworthy development
of the depression years. Emjo Basshe s Doomsday Circus was produced
in 1933; the next season saw productions of Paul and Claire Sifton s
Blood on the Moon, Wolfe s Sailors of Cattaro, and Peters and Sklar s
Stevedore. In the same season, Odets Till the Day I Die and Waiting
for Lefty were presented in Hollywood. Other developments of the
depression period were the Padua Hills Theatre at Claremont, present
ing Mexican actors in a present-day approximation of folk drama; and
the Theatre Mart s revival of The Drunkard, an old-time melodrama
that opened in 1933 and that, in December, 1938, broke the world s
record for long runs by surpassing the 283 consecutive weeks in New
York of Abies Irish Rose. The Drunkard had its 35Oth performance
in 1940.
Strangely enough, the lean I93o s saw one of the most lavish stage
spectacles ever presented in Los Angeles, Max Reinhardt s production
of Midsummer Night s Dream, produced at the Hollywood Bowl in
1934. Two years later the Bowl was the scene of another spectacular
outdoor drama, Everyman; and in 1938 Reinhardt staged an elaborate
production of Faust in the Pilgrimage Play Theatre.
In 1937-38 the road showed signs of reviving. The Biltmore
Theatre presented many outstanding New York successes and had one
of the longest and most profitable seasons in its history. There was
considerable activity among the little theatres, and several schools were
opened to offer drama training to would-be stage, screen, and radio
stars.
The Federal Theatre Project was established in 1935, when the
professional theatre was at low ebb. The project s actors were soon
providing continuous stage entertainment. The Los Angeles project,
second in size of personnel only to that of New York City, had radio
THE ARTS 133
and music units, a marionette division, vaudeville, colored, and Yid
dish units, and a children s theatre. Shakespearean dramas were given
in public schools, and at Christmas time morality plays were presented
at various theatres and in churches throughout the city. Among the
project s noteworthy presentations were Elmer s Rice s Judgment Day ;
Hall Johnson s Run Little Chillun, which opened in July 1938 and
ran eleven months; Ready! Aim! Fire!, by Jean Stone and Jack Robin
son; Two a Day, and Pinocchio, a marionette show. From 1935 to
1938 the project staged more than 150 productions, including many
dramas by new and hitherto unknown authors.
The Business of Pleasure
THE golden flow of outside dollars into southern California began
in the 1840*8, but the first visitors were chiefly hardbitten men
whose names appeared on "Wanted" placards throughout the
roaring West. They often arrived only a hop and a step ahead of the
law or the vigilantes, hell-bent for the Mexican border. Their head
quarters in Los Angeles was the Calle de los Negros (Street of the
Blacks), locally called Nigger Alley, the early amusement belt. Along
this narrow crowded street near the Plaza the click of roulette wheels
and the jingle of gold never stopped. The tempo of life was set by
gay fandangos danced to the strains of the harp, guitar, and violin.
The notes of the flageolet mingled with the shouts of rancheros and the
laughter of senoritas. The frequent pistol blasts brought no halt to the
merrymaking, and a public hanging had the aspect of a fiesta.
The most serious undertakings of the Angelenos were conducted
with abandon. They gambled recklessly, wagering hundreds of head
of cattle and vast tracts of land on the speed of a horse or the turn of
a card. Even the children staked the buttons on their clothes with
supreme contempt for the consequences. Indians wagered not only
their clothes but also at times their wives and children. Dancing,
hunting, and cockfighting were the business of life rather than its
diversions.
This semi-isolated existence of the sleepy pueblo became a memory
after the railroads arrived in the eighties. The Southern Pacific began
operation in 1883 and less than three years later the Santa Fe brought
in its first passengers. Owning extensive lands along its right of way,
the Santa Fe opened up the territory immediately and newcomers, in
spired by the articles of romanticists and the adroit advertising of the
railroads, began arriving in overwhelming numbers. California became
the fad, and during the winters from eighty-five to eighty-seven Los
Angeles filled with tourists, many of whom decided to remain perma
nently.
A land boom developed that brought many adventurers, and amuse
ments quickly responded. But when the boom came to a sudden end
values fell off and the influx ceased. Los Angeles had not been alive
to its new role of impressario in the business of entertainment, and not
for ten years were tourists to return in any numbers.
Meanwhile those who stayed were among the wealthier class of
Movies in the Makin
*
Warner Brothers
THE MAIN STUDIO AT BURBANK
OF WARNER BROTHERS FIRST NATIONAL PICTURES
THE SAMUEL GOLDWYN LOT, SMALLEST OF THE MAJOR STUDIOS
Samuel Goldwyn
Robert Coburn
WHENEVER THERE S A QUESTION THERE S A CONFERENCE
SHOOTING A SCENE ON A SOUND STAGE SET
Samuel Goldwyn
a j
Samuel Goldwyn
COMPLETED SET
SHOOTING A SCENE WITH A TECHNICOLOR CAMERA
Samuel Goldwyn
LUNCH TIME ON THE SET
Samuel Goldwvn
Mctro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MEN S WARDROBE DEPARTMENT
U
^
!!**
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
EXPERT SEAMSTRESSES ARE EMPLOYED
A CORNER OF THE PROPERTY ROOM
Mctro-Goldivyn- Mayer
MAKEUP
Samuel Goldwyn
FOG MADE TO ORDER A HAND-MADE TREE
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldw\n
WAVES ARE MADE BY MOTOR-DRIVEN ECCENTRIC CYLINDERS
VEGETABLES ARE SHELLACKED
TO PREVENT WILTING UNDER HEAT OF LIGHTS
Samuel Goldwvn
A MODERN MOVIOLA IS USED IN
EDITING, OR "CUTTING," THE FILM
Samuel Goldwyn
MUSIC IS SYNCHRONIZED ON RECORDS WHICH ARE
PLAYED BACK LATER AND RECORDED ON THE FILM
Robert Coburn
THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE 135
middle westerners or invalids in search of a health-giving climate. They
imposed their traditions upon the pleasure-loving native population.
Concerts, opera, and cultural entertainments began to increase and the
more disreputable amusements were banished to the outskirts of the city.
A weeding-out process was instigated and the adventurous were soon
forced to depart, hastened by the dearth of easy money. In 1889 the
gambling houses were closed and saloons functioned only on week days.
Then Los Angeles once more took in hand the problem of attract
ing tourists. A Chamber of Commerce had been created in 1888 to
grapple with the wreckage of the boom years. A period of experiment
with festivals was inaugurated. Fiestas and pageants of different kinds
were designed to hold the remaining population as well as to attract
new residents. Answering the taunts of the disillusioned, the Chamber
of Commerce in 1890 achieved a triumph of showmanship with its
orange carnival at Chicago. On the first day of the same year the
Valley Hunt Club of Pasadena had sponsored the first Battle of
Flowers in which Pasadenans competed for prizes by decorating their
horses and carriages with fresh blossoms. From this festival grew the
present annual Tournament of Roses.
La Fiesta de Los Angeles. The Feast of the Angels, as the Mer
chants Association called it, was conceived in 1894 m hopes of drawing
visitors attending the San Francisco Fair. The fiesta, a four-day cele
bration inspired by the carnivals at Nice and Monte Carlo, consisted
in a series of parades, a floral battle, el dia de las flores, in Central
Park (now Pershing Square), a grand ball, and fireworks displays.
After the turn of the century this celebration became known as La
Fiesta de Las Flores (The Feast of Flowers) and was held annually for
a decade.
Meanwhile the world was bombarded with hundreds of thousands
of pamphlets and elaborate exhibitions glorifying southern California.
Exhibits and accompanying ballyhoo were seen and heard at fairs and
expositions in Germany, France, and Guatemala, as well as in many
North American cities. The campaign reached heights of fantasy
during the Klondike gold rush when prospectors in Alaska were be;
sieged with propaganda "emphasizing the advantages of southern Cali
fornia climate in a place where they would be most keenly appreciated."
In spite of the change in entertainment the native Angelenos and
those of similar temperament continued to enjoy their own amusements.,
If gambling had been hardpressed, there were still dogfights and cock
fights where one could place his bets. "Los Angeles was a great town
then," according to James J. Jeffries, former heavyweight boxing cham
pion of the world. "Dog fights? I should say. I had a fighter, a bull
dog that weighed about 50 pounds. She cost $600 and whipped every-
136 LOS ANGELES
thing in sight. They even brought dogs from New York to fight her
for big side bets."
After 1900, however, a wave of reform swept over the town,
reaching such proportions in 1915 that the late Willard Huntington
Wright later known as S. S. Van Dine, author of mystery novels
declared that the tourist in search of urban pleasure would "find him
self thwarted by some ordinance, the primary object of which is to
force Middle West moralities upon all inhabitants. Puritanism is the
inflexible doctrine of Los Angeles." Wright attributed this "frenzy
for virtue" to the influx of natives of prairie states. Gambling and Sun
day dancing were forbidden in a community that had cut its eye teeth
on poker chips. Crusaders became so rampant that Los Angeles voted
itself dry two years before prohibition became a part of the Federal
Constitution.
Nevertheless recreation was not completely outlawed by the reform
movement. During the early igoo s the Chamber of Commerce began
to call attention to Los Angeles as an outdoor playground. To its ster
eotyped advertising of rose-bowered cottages, ideal climate, and condi
tions suitable for horticulture and manufacturing were added in praise
of southern California swimming, boating, fishing, and mountain climb
ing. Football, baseball, and tennis gained in popularity. By 1920
the Los Angeles area had become a winter playground for approxi
mately 200,000 people a year.
The Ail-Year Club of Southern California was formed in 1921 to
attract visitors during the summer, when the tourist trade annually
underwent a decline. This organization strove to analyze the likes and
dislikes of the average visitor and decided that eleven cents of every
tourist dollar were spent for amusement and recreation. During 1938
in southern California nearly 650,000 winter visitors and one million
summer visitors spent approximately two hundred million dollars in
Los Angeles.
As early as 1912, when Fred Kelly, a local boy, won the no-meter
hurdle championship at Stockholm, various civic groups dreamed of
bringing the Olympic games to Los Angeles. An application for the
games was suggested in 1919 at a meeting of the California Fiestas
Association. The association immediately launched a campaign to bring
the Olympics to Los Angeles. Colonel William May Garland, a local
financier, was asked to extend an official invitation. Equipped with
abundant figures and facts on the attractions of Los Angeles, plans for
a new stadium, and invitations from city, county, state and various
civic groups, Garland went to Europe and became a member of the
International Olympic Games Committee. He gained the immediate
support of a former visitor to California, Baron Pierre de Coubertin,
founder of the modern Olympic games and honorary life president of
THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE 137
the committee. The Vlllth and IXth Olympiads had already been
awarded. The Xth scheduled for 1932, would not be awarded until
1924.
Meanwhile plans progressed for the erection of the new Coliseum.
Construction started in Exposition Park in 1921. When completed
two years later at a cost of $800,000, the Coliseum had a seating capac
ity of 76,000. Word was received from Rome in 1924 that the Xth
Olympiad had been awarded to Los Angeles and a State Olympiad
Bond Act was carried to the polls in the 1928 elections, providing for
the enlargement of the Coliseum. This project was authorized and
the seating capacity was increased to 105,000.
Unexpected difficulties, however, intervened before the date of
the games. European countries discovered that Los Angeles was not
"just outside New York." The problem of transportation costs was
made serious by world depression. A group of Cuban athletes who
landed at Galveston, Texas, were pained to discover that that port is
not a suburb of Los Angeles. The Cubans returned home.
The next major development in the southern California sport world
was horse racing. Ever since the days of the Spanish dons racing had
been popular here. Always dependent upon gambling, it had experi
enced a severe setback in 1907, however, when pool selling, bookmaking,
and wagering were forbidden by state law. For a quarter of a century
racing was barred and racing fans were able to wager only through
illegal "bookies" and at the Mexican border resorts, Agua Caliente
and Tijuana.
The flood of California dollars poured out at Mexican tracks stirred
a boundless envy in the hearts of southern California horsemen and
promoters, and in 1933 proponents of legal horseracing introduced a
bill into the California legislature to "promote horse breeding and
thereby benefit agriculture." The measure also provided for the cre
ation of a California Horse Racing Board "for the licensing and super
vision of said horse racing and wagering thereon," and contained a
number of conciliatory provisions designed to win favor with non-
betting voters. The tracks were not to receive more than eight per
cent of the pari-mutuel pools plus "breakage," the aggregate nickels and
pennies above the pay-off to ten cents. The state s four per cent was
to be allocated to county, industrial, and fruit fairs, the State Emergency
Relief Administration, the California Polytechnic School, and the Uni
versity of California. Supporters of the bill emphasized that, even if
the source of revenue was not above reproach, the uses to which the
money would be put were on such a high moral plane that criticism
of the proposed bill seemed all but unpatriotic. On June 27, 1933,
the bill became law by a two-to-one majority vote.
The first track licensed in Los Angeles County under the new law
138 LOS ANGELES
was Santa Anita, which opened on Christmas Day, 1934. Its success
was so overwhelming that during the final weeks of the first season
the promoters voluntarily reduced their "take" from eight to six per
cent in order to forestall criticism of a top-heavy financial report.
Encouraged by the success of Santa Anita, another group of promoters
purchased ground in Inglewood, about twelve miles from downtown
Los Angeles, and began construction of Hollywood Park. Civic groups
and a militant church bloc, led by the Reverend Robert P. (Bob)
Shuler, objected before the racing board, which refused to grant a license
to the track. The promoters countered by raising a cry of monopoly,
which resulted in a special investigation by the state assembly in 1936.
Among other details the Assembly committee discovered that "breakage"
at Santa Anita totaled $409,707 for the 1936 season, that unclaimed
and forgotten winnings for the same period amounted to $28,451, and
that in three seasons the track had paid $1,350,000 in dividends on a
million dollar investment.
To offset these profits the track listed large donations to charity.
On this subject, however, the investigating committee said: "The com
mittee does not wish to appear unmindful of the generosity of these
donations. Neither does the committe wish to appear unmindful of the
business judgment used in the manner of their distribution. The com
mittee, however, has been so impressed by the enormous profits in the
business that it is clearly of the opinion that the giving has not yet
reached the point where it hurts."
Eventually the board reversed itself and issued a license to Holly
wood Park. The track held its inaugural meet during the summer of
1938. Its profits were not so large as those of Santa Anita, though the
mutuel "handle" for the summer season totaled $16,858,398.
Santa Anita holds a record (1940) for the largest amount of
money ($1,707,202) wagered through pari-mutuels in a single day.
This record was established March 2, 1940, date of the running of
the $100,000 added Santa Anita Handicap. During the 1938-39 season
of 52 days at Santa Anita the total mutuel handle was $34,589,051.
Though football is much younger in the annals of Los Angeles than
horse racing, the city ranks today as an important football center.
Leading teams are the University of Southern California and the Uni
versity of California at Los Angeles, members of the Pacific Coast
Conference. Both engage in intersectional games. Records of the
Los Angeles Coliseum show an attendance of 716,000 at football games
in 1938, the Southern California-Notre Dame game alone drawing a
crowd of 104,000.
One of intercollegiate football s best known events is the annual
Rose Bowl game at Pasadena, in which the leader of the Pacific Coast
Conference plays an outstanding team from another section of the
THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE 139
country. The Rose Bowl game emerged from the desire to provide
an attraction to follow the Tournament of Roses parade which is held
on New Year s Day morning. In 1902 the University of Michigan s
"point a minute" team overwhelmed the hitherto undefeated Stanford
University eleven of that year by a score of 49 to o; a deficit of about
$12,000 was incurred and football as a New Year s Day attraction was
permitted to lapse until 1916. In that year Brown University was
invited to play Washington State and was defeated, 14 to o. This
defeat instituted the modern series of post-season Bowl games.
Less national in character, but nevertheless attracting over a million
patrons during 1938, were the boxing and wrestling matches at the
Hollywood American Legion Stadium and the Olympic Auditorium,
Fight fans know the best place to see movie stars is not on Hollywood
Boulevard but in the first six rows of either of these two major fight
clubs. Several eastern states, including New York, do not recognize
championship bouts held in California where the state law limits all
decision fights to 10 rounds. However there is no lack of interest on
the part of local fans and Los Angeles is considered a "good fight
town." Save in the wrestling industry, with its synthetic and few dis
tinguished titles, championship bouts are rare. Although Henry Arm
strong, ex-welterweight champion and former lightweight champion,
is a resident of Los Angeles, he has never defended his titles in his
home city. Joe Louis, heavyweight title holder, knocked out Jack
Roper in the first round of an undistinguished championship bout at
Wrigley Field on April 17, 1939.
Prior to 1915 "boxing exhibitions" up to 20 rounds were permitted
in Los Angeles. First to bring top-ranking pugilists to town was
Tom McCarey, who staged bouts at Hazard s Pavilion at Fifth and
Olive Streets. Jim Jeffries, later heavyweight champion, fought his
first professional fight in Los Angeles at the old Manitou Club on
Main Street in 1892, and Jack Johnson first gained prominence at
the Century Club in the early igoo s. In 1903 Johnson persuaded
McCarey to promote a title bout between him and Jeffries, the reigning
champion, but McCarey was unable to complete arrangements for the
match. Seven years later Johnson defeated Jeffries at Reno, Nevada.
Many champions and near-champions, among them Stanley Ketchel,
Ad Wolgast, Freddie Welsh, and Abe Attell, trained in and around
Los Angeles, generally at Jack Doyle s arena in Vernon, then a popular
sport center.
In 1915 the legislature banned professional bouts and limited ama
teur exhibitions to four rounds. In 1924, however, the limit was
extended to include professional 10- round decision contests.
Among other sports that attract large audiences are baseball, auto
racing, polo, tennis, basketball, and hockey. Baseball ranks as a favorite
I4O LOS ANGELES
and Los Angeles has two teams, both members of the Pacific Coast
League. Home games of the Los Angeles Angels are played on Wrig-
ley Field. The Hollywood Stars, financed in part by motion-picture
people, play their home games at Gilmore Field. The two teams draw
over half a million people a year, the introduction of night games having
greatly added to the sport s popularity. Army and Navy teams play
at Fort MacArthur and Duncan Field in San Pedro, and exhibition
games by the Chicago Cubs, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Chicago
White Sox attract crowds. These teams hold spring training at Santa
Catalina Island, San Bernardino, and Pasadena, respectively.
Fast gaining in popularity is the dangerous sport of midget auto
racing which originated in Los Angeles. The season opens in April
and continues with weekly races to late fall.
Polo is played on week-end afternoons by members of the motion-
picture colony and others able to afford the upkeep of polo ponies.
There are six clubs, notably the Riviera Country Club, the Will Rogers
Memorial Field, and the Midwick Country Club. Within recent years
the quality of the western game has greatly improved.
Southern California tennis is outstanding. Championship matches
are held on the courts of the Los Angeles Tennis Club the last week of
September, and leading professional players appear frequently, usually
on the courts of the Ambassador Hotel. There are more than fifty
public and semipublic clubs affiliated with the Southern California
Lawn Tennis Association, and 90 per cent of all national championships
are held by Californians, a majority of them local players.
Collegiate basketball, played at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium, and
collegiate hockey at the Tropical Ice Gardens, have consistently out-
drawn ventures in the professional and semiprofessional branches of
these games.
Those who seek outdoor recreation find the beaches the greatest
attraction. Several private clubs provide beach games, and at Santa
Monica and Ocean Park there are municipal playgrounds with card
and checker tables, basketball, volleyball, ping pong and badminton
courts, and the usual assortment of children s swings and slides. There
are amusement piers at Ocean Park, Venice, Redondo, and Long Beach.
The warm temperature of the ocean water permits swimming and
bathing most of the year. Surfboarding is a specialty at Palos Verdes;
aquaplaning at Newport and Balboa, farther down the coast. Though
the majority of the people are not yachtsmen or yacht racing fans, sail
ing and boating have their devotees both at public piers where various
types of craft may be hired, and at several yacht clubs situated along the
coast. Outstanding races are the annual midwinter national champion
ship and the 2,ooo-mile Los Angeles to Honolulu biennial race.
Many varieties of deep sea fish are caught in local waters (see
THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE 14!
Tour ;./). Some limited fishing is possible without a license or other
charges from the municipal piers, and hundreds of land-loving fisher
men almost continuously line breakwaters and piers. Those seeking
game fish take water taxies plying between the beaches and barges
anchored offshore, or numerous live bait boats for half or whole day
trips. For more extended ocean trips, private boats are chartered in
which to stalk the prize tuna or righting swordfish.
So much emphasis has been devoted in advertising campaigns to
southern California s mild winter climate that Angelenos were pleas
antly shocked in recent years to discover the presence of frozen assets.
Winter sports became popular in Los Angeles about 1927. The initial
event was a snow picnic at Lake Arrowhead ; since, Los Angeles has
achieved a ranking close to Lake Placid and Minneapolis in winter
sports. Skiing, ice hockey, skating, tobogganing, and snowshoeing are
important features of the winter seasons at Arrowhead, Big Bear Lake,
Big Pines, Mount Baldy, and other public and private resorts, the
winter carnival at Big Pines attracting ski jumpers from many parts
of the world. In town an outdoor rink and several indoor ice rinks
operate the year around.
Bowling, which has been an established sport in Los Angeles for a
number of years, gained great favor in 1938, and luxurious recreational
centers have been installed throughout the county. In 1940, there were
90 such establishments in southern California of which 45 were in
metropolitan Los Angeles. The tough atmosphere and glaring lights of
the old-time bowling alley are no longer in evidence. Pavilions are
air-conditioned and are indirectly lighted; sound is reduced to a mini
mum by scientific insulation ; leather upholstered chairs provide com
fort for spectators; cafes and cocktail lounges are a part of the scene.
Bowling lanes have a telescore that makes the tally instantly visible
to players and spectators, and a photoelectric device registers fouls.
Teletalk broadcasters page bowlers with messages or phone calls and
subradio is used to broadcast important matches. Included among the
largest centers are the Angeles, Arlington, Beverly Hills, Bimini, Holly
wood, Luxor, Pico, Southwest, Whittier, and Sunset, the latter reputed
to be the largest in the West, with 52 alleys, and seats for 800 spectators.
During the "reformist" early igoo s when bars were closed at
midnight and drinking and dancing in the same establishment was
banned, Vernon, a small but tolerant town nearby, was the oasis for
night-faring Angelenos. They lined six-deep in front of Jack Doyle s
bar, "the longest in the world." In 1912 Baron Long opened the
Vernon Country Club, patterned after a saloon and dance hall on San
Francisco s famous Barbary Coast. Sportsmen, members of society,
movie stars, and hordes of unclassified citizens rubbed elbows at Baron
Long s.
142 LOS ANGELES
With the repeal of Prohibition closing time for bars became two
a.m., and new laws permitted the mixing of drinking and dancing.
Today Los Angeles night clubs range from the raucous honky-tonks
of Main Street, to the ultra-elegant restaurants and clubs of Holly
wood, the Sunset Strip, and Beverly Hills. Bars selling drinks for
ten cents and fifteen cents, with tiny dance floors and electric phono
graphs, abound in almost all districts, and in the western and south
western sections of the city there are more elaborate establishments
where tariffs are higher and small "hot" bands assiduously stifle con
versation.
Among the favorite spots of movie people in 1939 were the Grace
Hayes Lodge on Ventura Boulevard (catering to the San Fernando
movie colony), such Sunset Strip establishments as Cafe Lamaze, Giro s
and Dave Chasen s restaurant on Beverly Boulevard. Influenced
by fan magazine photographs of movie stars amid balloons and confetti,
tourists flock to Hollywood night clubs and restaurants. But Los
Angeles residents know that many nights and dollars can be spent at
better known night spots without a glimpse of a screen star. After
a hard day s work most film folk who enjoy night club entertainment
prefer small, secluded spots where the management tries to some extent
to shield them from autograph seekers and other troubles.
There are exceptions but that is the tourist s gamble.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX^fcXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX^
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx^rxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx*
PART II
Los Angeles Points of Interest
*X&&^^^^
Downtown Los Angeles
Visible remains and sites important in every period of Los Angeles
history are seen within a radius of a few blocks of the old Plaza.
The oldest of these is the site of the Indian village of Yang-Na, settled
long before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. A few relics of the
days of Spanish and Mexican rule stand about the Plaza. Evidences
of the city s dissimilar periods and cultures create a feeling of confusion
in this vicinity; the monumental modern buildings of the new and still
uncompleted Civic Center stand side by side with the grimy structures
of former years, designed in pseudo-mission and rococo styles, and the
aged, crumbling adobes of the pueblo period. There is contrast even in
the angles at which the buildings stand, for old structures that are to
be razed face streets that have been re-routed, and the modern buildings
the modern thoroughfares.
The business section of the city was formerly around the Plaza, but
it gradually expanded toward the southwest, and in time a new central
district developed and left the Plaza region a backwash. This newer
district, although still the focus of much of the commerce and gaiety of
the metropolitan district, is already experiencing serious competition
from the sections developing along main arteries and in the suburbs of
the greater city.
The irregularly bounded CIVIC CENTER spreads north as far
as Ord Street, eastward to Avila Street, southward to First Street, and
westward to Olive Street. It is still largely in the blueprint stage,
although six of the units the Federal Building, the City Hall, the
County Hall of Justice, the County Hall of Records, the State Build
ing, and the Union Passenger Terminal have been completed. Seven
other buildings the County Courts, Traffic and Safety, Engineering,
Consular Offices, Latin-American Hall, Foreign Trade, and State Board
of Public Works are being designed. The Civic Center plans call
for the destruction of numerous landmarks, elm-fly around Ferguson
Alley, in Old Chinatown, and on Court Hill west of the Hall of
Records; in their place will be landscaped lawns and parkways. The
Plaza, the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, Olvera Street, and
possibly a few other landmarks will be preserved.
i. The 32-story LOS ANGELES CITY HALL (open workdays
8-$; guides}, bounded by Temple, Main, First, and Spring Sts., was
designed by Austin, Parkinson and Martin, and is one of the few
exceptions to the l5O-foot-height limit set by city ordinance upon build
ing in Los Angeles. Its pyramid-capped obelisk tower rises 28 stories
145
POINTS OF INTEREST
(Downtown)
1. Los Angeles City Hall
2. Federal Building
3. Los Angeles County Hall
of Justice
4. Los Angeles County Hall
of Records
5. California State Building
6. Los Angeles Times Build
ing
7. Natick Hotel
8. St. Vibiana s Cathedral
9. Baker Building
10. Merced Theatre Building
1 1. Pico House
12. Plaza
13. Plaza Church
14. Statue of Fray Junipero
Serra
15. Lugo House
1 6. Zanja Madre
17. Avila Adobe
1 8. Casa La Golondrina
19. El Camino Watering
Trough
20. Miniature Landscape and
Fish Pool
21. Los Angeles Union Passen
ger Terminal
22. Kong Chew Chinese Bud
dhist Temple
23. Yamato Hall
24. Daisha Mission
25. Hongwanji Buddhist
Temple
26. Grand Central Market
27. Angel s Flight
28. Philharmonic Auditorium
Building
29. Pershing Square
30. Biltmore Hotel
31. Edison Building
32. Sunkist Building
33. Los Angeles Central Public
Library
34. Bible Institute of Los An
geles
35. Richfield Building
36. Clifton Cafeteria
37. Los Angeles Stock Ex
change Building
38. Alexandria Hotel
LOS ANGELES
SCALE Of MILES
148 LOS ANGELES
above the four-story base, with the tip 464 feet above the street level.
It houses city government offices, including the Police Department and
two traffic courts, as well as 31 superior courts.
The base of the building is faced with light-gray California granite ;
the towering central section and the five-story wings flanking it are of
terra cotta. The wings are roofed with dark-hued tiles. Eight heavy
buttresses carry the lines of the square central section upward to the
23rd floor, and are duplicated in another series that extends to the
balcony of the observation platform. There are sixteen 5O-foot columns
on the face below the platform and above it rises a stepped pyramid;
at the peak of the pyramid is an airplane beacon named in honor of
Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh.
The building is entered through a colonnaded and arcaded Fore
court with monolithic columns, tile-and-brick paving, and soft-colored
tile panels on the walls. It leads to the Rotunda, in which more than
4,000 pieces of marble are laid in a geometric pattern on the floor.
In the Council Chamber are galleries supported by 12 monolithic
columns, each of a different kind of marble. Noteworthy are the Board
of Public Works Sessions Room, with arcades decorated in green, blue,
and gold; the Elevator Lobby, finished in Verona marble, with relief
maps showing the city s water system and the projected Civic Center;
and the Mayor s Reception Room, which has a floor of East Indian
teakwood fastened with dowels.
The ART GALLERY, in Room 351 on the third floor, exhibits paint
ings by California artists. On clear days the OBSERVATION BALCONY
(open workdays 9:30-4.; free}, on the 25th floor, affords a view of the
entire city, the mountains, the sea, and the many surrounding com
munities. The balcony surrounds a large room in which are four
large key photographs bearing the names of the principal points seen
from the four sides of the platform.
2. The white walls of the FEDERAL BUILDING (conducted
tours by arrangement with postmaster}, in the block between Main,
Temple, and Spring Sts., rise 17 stories above Spring Street and 18
stories above Main Street; walls of the sub-story on Main Street are
faced with black and gold rainbow granite. The main post office and
some sixty United States Government departments and bureaus occupy
the greater part of the building. Federal courts are held on the second
and the two topmost floors.
The structure, designed by G. Stanley Underwood, is without
external embellishment. The central section has a setback at the fourth
story. A steel frame makes the building earthquake resistant.
The Spring Street and Main Street entrances are flanked by bronze-
based flagpoles and pairs of Doric columns. Between the columns are
lacelike aluminum grilles bearing seals of various Federal departments.
Ceramic medallions flank the doors. The walls of the lobbies are lined
with rose marble and Sienna travertine; the floors are of terrazzo.
3. Oldest of the modern Civic Center buildings, the LOS AN
GELES COUNTY HALL OF JUSTICE (open workdays 8-5}, on
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 1 49
Temple St. between Broadway and Spring St., was completed in 1925
at a cost of $6,000,000. Faced with gray California granite and orna
mented with tall polished granite columns above the balustraded tenth
floor level, it represents the last years of the period in which public
structures had to have classical embellishments. It is occupied by the
County Jail, Criminal Division of the Municipal and Superior Courts,
and the offices of the District Attorney, Grand Jury, Sheriff, Tax Col
lector, Assessor, Health Department, and Coroner.
4. The dusty 12-story LOS ANGELES COUNTY HALL OF
RECORDS (open workdays 9-5), 220 N. Broadway, is marked for
early demolition as the new Civic Center is developed. Its pyramidal
gables and fussy ornamentation are typical of the architecture of its
time; when it was erected in 1909 it was the million-dollar pride of
the city. It stands oblique to Broadway, conforming to old street lines.
The offices, which crowd it those of the County Auditor, Board of
Equalization, Civil Service Commission, Board of Supervisors, County
Council, Superior Courts, Vital Statistics, and Marriage License Bureau
will eventually be moved to a new County Courts Building.
5. The CALIFORNIA STATE BUILDING (open workdays 8-5).
First St. between Broadway and Spring St., is the administrative
center of state government in southern California. The building,
w r ith a broad, 12-story central section and two nine-story wings, was
designed by John C. Austin and Frederic M. Ashley. It has simple
lines and broad windows, and is faced with light-gray California
granite. Although built in 1933, additional quarters are already
needed; a supplementary building, to house the State Board of Public
Works, has been planned for the northeast corner of First and Olive
Streets.
Notable are the lobby, with its columns and pilasters of deep-red
Alicante (Spanish) marble, wainscoting of delicate rose marble above
a base of green marble, and the floor of black, cream, and red mottled
marbles; the Assembly Hall, in which are three brightly colored murals
by Lucile Lloyd depicting events in California history; and the Cali
fornia Supreme Court and District Court of Appeals Chambers, com
pletely paneled with oak except behind the seven justices chairs, where
pale-blue tiles have been placed. The ceiling has a similar embellish
ment.
6. The LOS ANGELES TIMES BUILDING (conducted tours
3 p.m. weekdays, 2: JO p.m. Sat., reservations 2 days in advance; free),
202 W. First St., designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, was built in
1935 at a cost of $4,000,000 for one of the city s three morning
newspapers. The structure, with setbacks, has a central section with
massive piers and four-story wings. Atop the clock tower is the bronze
eagle that survived the dynamiting of the old Times plant in 1910 (see
The Historic Background}.
Above the polished black granite base the walls are faced with a
pinkish granite to the second floor; above, between the vertical row- of
windows separated by dark metal plaques, is cream-colored limestone.
I5O LOS ANGELES
Behind the polished red-granite entrance is the rotunda, with a five
and one-half-foot aluminum globe in a bronze base, revolving within a
bronze band showing the signs of the zodiac. In the mosaic upon the
floor are 13 varieties and colors of marbles in a circular pattern; the
base of the walls is faced with reddish marbles, and above are rust-
colored murals executed by Hugo Ballin, showing the various phases of
newspaper production.
The structure, sound-proofed and air-conditioned, is one of the
most modern newspaper plants. A private power plant is the driving
force behind the Hoe presses, capable of printing 320,000 papers of 32
pages each in an hour. The auditorium, on the fifth floor, seats 2,000
persons and opens on two roof gardens. The building also contains
kitchens, banquet rooms, and remote-control broadcasting rooms.
7. The NATICK HOTEL, 108 W. First St., built in 1880, was
once the most fashionable in the city. It boasted of its fireproof con
struction. The age-discolored marquee over the First Street entrance,
the narrow arched windows, and the base of the graceful hardwood
staircase with small, many-globed light standards represented Vic
torian elegance. A grilled iron elevator cage rises from the center of
the large lobby.
The mile stretch of Main Street, from the Plaza south to about
Sixth Street, known as Calle Principal (main street) even in Mexican
days, is the principal business street of a district with some 60,000
people of foreign birth or descent mostly Japanese, Filipinos, Chinese,
Mexicans, Negroes, Jews, and Italians. It attracts many and diverse
types of derelicts and transients.
Main Street, 25 miles long with its modern extensions, begins north
of the city at Mission Road and runs south to the harbor at San
Pedro, but only the short section in the city, beginning at the Plaza at
Marchessault Street named for Damien Marchessault, New Orleans
gambler and Los Angeles mayor in the i86o s is a mixture of bars,
honkytonks, barber "colleges," tattoo shops, pitchmen, pawn shops,
flophouses, and all-night movies serving as dormitories for audiences of
derelicts who sleep through continuous reels in spite of the blaring of
sound machines.
The frowsiness of most of the buildings is accented by their extrava
gant and decaying Victorian ornamentation, but the shops and saloons
on the street floors are divesting themselves of all ties with the past
and growing continually more modern, even junking the lithographs
of Ouster s Last Fight, which once hung in every barroom.
Exodus of the socially elite from the neighborhood of the old Plaza
began in the iSyo s and was directed south along Main Street. Most
of the buildings that remain were erected between 1880 and 1900,
when the city s population jumped from 11,000 to 100,000.
8. A rose window and arched niches holding five statues of saints
ornament the facade of ST. VIBIANA S CATHEDRAL (open 6-8
daily), 208-216 S. Main St., seat of the Archdiocese of the Province
of Southern California. The structure extends from Main Street to
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 151
Los Angeles Street, where a low belfry in four stages with a top-heavy
dome and tiny lantern strike an incongruous note. The structure itself,
with simple walls of gray limestone, a clerestory, buttresses, and severe
one-story Doric portico, was designed with much restraint. A relic of
St. Vibiana, the child saint, reputedly recovered from the Roman cata
combs, is encased in a wax statue, in a gilt-and-plateglass sarcophagus,
and reposes in a niche above the high altar. The object is exposed on
feast days.
9. The three-story BAKER BUILDING (open workdays 8:30-12 m.;
i $ p.m.), 342 N. Main St., built by Colonel R. S. Baker, was in its
day one of the most pretentious structures in town. It shows its
Second Empire inspiration in the fluted cast-iron Corinthian pilasters,
narrow arched windows, ornate stone cornices, and time-blackened
wooden canopy over the street on two sides. Three squat towers are
heavily decorated. The Baker block had the first telephone switch
board in Los Angeles and boasted the first elevator, which was raised
by Chinese muscle-power.
10. The three-story MERCED THEATRE BUILDING, 418-22
N. Main St., adjoining the Pico House on the south, dates from 1870.
It has brick walls covered with discolored gray plaster, and now con
tains shops and a rooming house.
11. The PICO HOUSE (always open), 430 N. Main St., first three-
story building in Los Angeles, was built in 1868-69 by Pio Pico, last
of the Mexican governors of California, and his brother Andres. The
old hotel, its brick walls now stuccoed, is constructed around a large
court that formerly held a fountain. In its heyday the hostelry boasted
gas lights and extensively advertised its two zinc bathtubs enclosed in
wood, one on each of the two upper floors. There are now shops on
the street floor, but the hotel is still maintained. Civic Center plans
call for the building s demolition.
12. The PLAZA, bounded by N. Main, Marchessault, N. Los An
geles, and Plaza Sts., is a circular plot shaded by rubber trees, palms,
and bamboo, and surrounded by a low saw-toothed brick wall with
recessed seats. The unbroken rows of wooden benches are continually
crowded with loiterers, who doze in the shade or listen to the harangues,
of economic saviors and religious zealots who hold forth from low con
crete platforms that in the 1870*8 were watering troughs.
In 1781 De Neve platted the Plaza slightly northwest of the present
site. Several years after it was ruined by the flood of 1815, it was laid
on this slightly higher spot. The life of the pueblo centered about the
Plaza from the time of De Neve, though in its early years the place was
a treeless, dusty common, in the rainy season a welter of mud. First
effort to make the park attractive began in 1859; but wandering goats
devoured the shrubs and the natives appropriated the picket fence for
firewood.
Though plans for the Civic Center leave the Plaza itself untouched,
they threaten the existence of the age-worn buildings around it.
A life-size bronze STATUTE OF FELIPE DE NEVE, founder of Los
152 LOS ANGELES
Angeles, stands on a boulder in the Plaza pool. The statue was exe
cuted by Henry Lion in 1932.
13. The old PLAZA CHURCH (open 5 a.m.-Q p.m. daily), 100
Sunset Blvd., faces the Plaza on the west. It is a simple gray-plastered
brick building flush with the street and flanked on one side by a bell
tower, on the other by a patio entered from the church through a side
door and from the street through a gateway in a thick wall. Three
date palms in the patio are almost as tall as the two-story edifice itself.
The church has undergone many renovations.
The services of La Iglesia de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los
Angeles (the Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels), estab
lished in 1784, were first held in a small adobe building near what is
now Bellevue Street and North Broadway, two blocks to the north
west. Construction of a church was begun in 1814 but when the
structure was threatened by the flood of 1815 it was abandoned. Build
ing of the present church, which is on higher ground, was begun in
1818 and it was dedicated on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin Mary, December 8, 1822. Heavy rains in 1859 caused
the adobe front to cave in, and in 1861-62 the facade was completely
rebuilt and a shingle roof put on. The present campanario (bell
tower) was built in 1875, and the rectory, a two-story buff-colored
stucco building beyond the patio, in 1881. In 1912 the church was
enlarged on the west side, and eight memorial windows and a circular
sky-light were added. The present tile roof was put in place in 1923.
The "elopement bell," which hangs alone at the pierced left side of
the squat companario, is the best toned of the four. It was obtained
for the church at the suggestion of the Parish priest, by Henry Fitch, a
young American adventurer, as "penance and reparation" for having
eloped to Chile with Josefa Carrillo after failing to win her family s
consent to marriage. The lower left bell in front was given by Mis
sion San Gabriel in 1821. The other two front bells, the larger of
which is used to toll requiem, were made, like the "elopement bell," by
G. H. Holbrook of Massachusetts, and were transferred from San
Gabriel in 1827.
Over the round arch of the recessed entrance between the two
windows, and in medallions on both sides of the arch, are small oblongs
with figures incised in cement, all that remains of distemper-murals
done by Henri Penelon in 1861. The east end of the present building
is the oldest unit of the church and it is believed that removal of the
paint in the interior of this section will reveal old murals executed by
Indians. The baptistry, directly under the choir loft, contains the
original copper baptismal font, used in some 65,000 christenings.
14. A life-size bronze STATUE OF FRAY JUNIPERO SERRA,
founder of the California missions, at the intersection of New High
St., Bellevue Ave., and Sunset Blvd., faces southeast toward the old
Plaza Church. The figure stands on two long concrete islands in the
street. The upraised right hand holds a cross; in the palm of the
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 153
extended left hand is a miniature mission. The work was executed by
E. Cadorin of Santa Barbara.
15. Facing the Plaza on the east is the dormer-windowed LI (JO
HOUSE (adm. by permission of occupants), 516-522 N. Los Angeles
St., built by Vicenti Lugo in 1840. It is the only old two-story adobe
in the city. Little of it is visible; on the first floor under the balcony
are glass-fronted shops, and the rear has been walled with brick. A
gable roof with dormers has been added and both ends of the long
balcony which is supported by seven green- and red-painted wooden
posts has been walled in to form rooms. Part of the old balcony,
with its balustrades, remains in the center, and the arrow-pointed edg
ing on the eaves shows.
Owing to miscalculations, the house was built obliquely to the curb,
two feet nearer at one end than the other. When the front was built,
however, it was aligned with the street, but the posts and balcony
remain askew.
OLVERA STREET (concessions open 8 a.rn.-2 a.m.), extending
between Marchessault and A lacy Sts., is a narrow, block-long alley
designed to give tourists a taste of Mexico. Sandwiched between the
back walls of old business buildings, the yoodd stores and booths
owned and operated by Mexicans have gay decorations and displays of
Mexican foods, pottery, and trinkets.
This old street was named for Augustin Olvera, who fought against
Fremont during the American conquest of California. It degenerated
into an alley of mud and refuse soon after the American occupation
and was not reclaimed until the fall of 1929, when brick and tile paving
was laid, trees and shrubbery were planted, and old houses restored.
Although the corporation that administers the street has renamed it
El Paseo de Los Angeles (Walk of the Angels), it is still popularly
known by the original name.
Olvera Street s chief festival period, December 16 to 24, is cele
brated with Los Posados (the lodgings), a pageant re-enacting Mary s
journey to Bethlehem in search of a birthplace for Jesus.
1 6. Near the Marchessault Street entrance to Olvera Street is a three-
foot red-brick strip that marks the course of the /AN f A MADRE, or
mother ditch. Built in 1782-83, it carried water, raised by a wooden
water wheel from the Los Angeles River near Elysian Park, to the
pueblo for all purposes irrigation, bathing, watering stock, and near
its source for drinking. During the dry season it also served as a
reservoir. Meandering along the east side of Los Angeles Street, the
mother zav]a branched into smaller zanjas. The white settlers, in
the i8so s and l86o s, called the zanjas (zan-khas) "sanky ditche-."
With the introduction of a more modern system in 1863, the ditches
were filled in.
17. Adjoining the relic of the Zanja Madre is the renovated AVI LA
ADOBE (open 8 a.m.-io p.m.; adm. iof), 14 Olvera St., the oldest
residence in Los Angeles, possibly built as early as 1818 and not later
than 1824. It was constructed by Francisco Avila, one-time alcalde
154 LOS ANGELES
(mayor) of the pueblo. Only one seven-room wing remains of the
L-shaped i8-room house that was the finest building in town in its
day. This remaining wing is a large one-story block with gabled roof,
age-darkened walls, and a narrow porch. The walls, two-and-one-half
feet thick, show remnants of the cottonwood beams taken from the
banks of the nearby Los Angeles River.
Markers, both outside and inside, commemorate various historical
events, among them the use of the adobe by Commodore Stockton after
the widow Avila s distaste for American occupation caused her to
abandon her home. Senora Avila returned after the departure of
Stockton and lived in the house until her death in 1855. The earth
quake of 1857 destroyed about half of the structure; before restoration
began in 1929 a sign "condemned" hung on the roofless, dilapidated
walls.
1 8. One of the city s first brick buildings, CAS A LA GOLON-
DRINA (open 8 a.m.-io p.m.; free), 35 Olvera St., is now occupied
by a cafe. It is of disputed age; it was built by an Austrian immigrant
after 1850 and before 1865, when it was sold to Antonio Pelanconi.
The Pelanconis lived on the second floor and on the first made the wine
they sometimes sold, this giving rise to the legend that the house was
Los Angeles first winery. Of interest are the hand-grooved balcony,
the low heavily-beamed ceilings, and the fireplace in the first floor.
19. At the Macy Street end of Olvera Street is the stone EL
CAMINO WATERING TROUGH, enclosed by a rustic fence and
shaded by a small olive tree. The trough, hand-hewn by San Fer
nando Mission Indians in 1820, is carved from a yellow sandstone
boulder. Until its presentation to Olvera Street in 1930 by the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power the trough stood in front
of Mission San Fernando (see Tour 7) beside El Camino Real. In
earlier days it held water for the mounts of travelers and for stock
driven to and from Mission San Gabriel.
CHINA CITY (open 8 a.m-2 a.m.), bounded by Ord, Main,
Macy, and New High Sts., is an American-promoted, Chinese-operated
amusement center designed to attract tourists. It was partly destroyed
by fire early in 1939, but is now restored. The "city" stands out as
an oriental oasis in the midst of Los Angeles oldest section, which is
being reclaimed in the Civic Center new building program. The con
cessions grouped around a small plaza are visited in a rickshaw (25$
per ride) .
Much of the construction material of the "city" was donated: pink
sandstone from the old Federal Building was used for the gate, stairs,
and walls, and the dedicatory stone of the entrance is from the old
Times Building. Bamboo poles are from the Los Angeles Park De
partment, cobblestones from the Street Department.
NEW CHINATOWN (cafes open 8 a.m.-2 a.m.), Broadway and
College St., is one of two Chinatowns that developed when construction
of the Union Passenger Terminal caused demolition of a large part of
old Chinatown.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 155
The North Broadway entrance opens into a landscaped court that
leads into a narrow arcade lined with shops where bean sprouts, bean
curd, herbs, and other Chinese delicacies are sold. The modern though
still oriental town consists of a series of separate two-story buildings,
of buff, tan, and green stucco, with curved roofs and continuous second-
story balconies, and occasional octagonal windows, built around the four
sides and in the center of a rectangle.
20. The MINIATURE LANDSCAPE AND FISH POOL, in the
center of New Chinatown, was designed and built by Louie Hong Kay
and associate artists. Enclosed by a low, square brick wall, a miniature
hill, landscaped with dwarf evergreen trees and succulent plants, rises
in the center of the pool. Miniature bridges and paths lead up among
small figurines of the Chinese Eight Immortals to the hill s summit,
where a blue figure of the goddess Quan Yin, guarded on either side
by small blue lions, is protected by the arch of a miniature shrine. A
small Chinese flag is mounted above the summit.
Visible on the floor of the pool, beneath the gold and silver flashing
bodies of fish, are hundreds of coins cast into the water by Chinatow r n
visitors who hope thereby to make wishes come true ; the coins are peri
odically collected by the Chinese merchants who built and maintain the
pool, and are applied to the fund for Chinese War Refugees.
21. The huge LOS ANGELES UNION PASSENGER TER
MINAL, Alameda St. between Aliso and Macy Sts., designed by a
group of architects headed by Donald B. Parkinson, is a T-shaped
group of 30 low stuccoed, tile-roofed buildings dominated by a 135-
foot observation tower with a clock. The transcontinental and north-
south trains of the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe railroads use the terminal.
The large main structure and the smaller buildings are separated
by narrow air spaces in a manner intended to absorb earthquake shock.
In the main building is the information desk; to the left is the Main
Concourse, with ticket offices and rest rooms; to the right a large
arcade leads to the restaurant and kitchen; in the rear is the waiting
room. Flanking the waiting room are two large patios; one, the South
Patio, with pepper, palm, and olive trees and trumpet and cup-of-gold
vines, is intended to represent California planting and garden design
at its best. Immediately east of the south patio is the Reception Hall,
which is next to the departure and arrival lobby. East of this lobby
is a passenger tunnel with ramps giving access to eight platforms and
16 tracks. In the utility buildings on both sides of the departure and
arrival lobby, mail, baggage, and express are handled ; in one is the
power plant. A basement garage has space for 120 automobiles, and
parking islands in front of the buildings hold 400 more cars.
Most of the ramshackle red brick buildings of Old Chinatown
which cluttered the section east of the Plaza for more than half a
century, were razed in 1933 to make way for the Union Passenger
Terminal, and most of the remainder will be demolished to make room
156 LOS ANGELES
for a parkway. The old town developed slowly: there were but two
Chinese here in 1850, about 2,000 in 1900 (18 years after passage of
the first Exclusion Act), and 3,009 in 1930, giving the city fourth rank
in Chinese populations in the United States. The dimly lit narrow
alleys of Old Chinatown, reminders of the Cantonese origin of most
of the inhabitants, are now virtually gone, but the festivities of Chinese
New Year (usually in Feb. or Mar.), with exploding crackers and
dragons writhing through the streets, continue.
22. KONG CHEW CHINESE BUDDHIST TEMPLE (usually
open until $ p.m.), 2151/2 Ferguson Alley, occupies the second floor of
a small red brick building. Entrance is through a brick archway, an
alley, a courtyard, and up orange-painted stairs. The use of unshaded
electric lights over the highly-gilded wooden panels produces a tawdry
effect. The air is weighted with the perfumed smoke from joss sticks
smouldering in peanut oil, burning to the five small gods in the altar.
Among these is the grab-bag god with a pile of straws, each straw with
a prescription for some ailment wrapped around it. The health seeker
draws a straw from the pile and trusts in the god of chance for a cure.
The JAPANESE QUARTER, locally called Little Tokio, is
bounded on the north by Aliso St., on the east by Central Ave., on the
south by Fourth St., and on the west by Los Angeles St. About 35,000
persons, by far the largest urban group of Japanese in continental
United States, either live or do business here. It is one of the oldest
sections of the city, a fact little apparent in the spick-and-span stores,
neat window displays, and highly colored banners and signs. First
Street is the main business thoroughfare.
Little Tokio is gayest during festivals. The Bon festival, July
13-16, which honors ancestral spirits, is sometimes called the "Feast of
the Lanterns" by Americans. The Nisei festival, participated in by
second generation American- Japanese, is held in August; features are
boys in ancient costume dueling with bamboo swords, and dancing girls.
The 9OO-year-old Hina Matsuri (doll festival) is held on March 3 of
each year.
The section supports three daily newspapers and one weekly paper,
uses telephone directories in Japanese. Little Tokio was first occupied
in large numbers after the earthquake and fire in San Francisco in
1906.
23. In YAMATO HALL, the Japanese Community Center, 321 E.
Jackson St., occasional road shows from Japan are presented.
24. Lantern standards and superimposed torn, or bird perch, give the
only Oriental feeling to the DAISHA MISSION (open g a.m. to mid
night}, 133 N. Central Ave., a one-story frame building, where the
Shing-on sect of Mahayana Buddhists hold their meetings. The light-
green interior is hung with hundreds of white paper strips bearing
names of worshipers who have made offerings. The altar, which gives
the effect of being deeply recessed, screens a painting of Buddha brought
from Mount Koya, near Osaka, Japan, scene of the sect s founding in
804 A.D.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 157
25. The HONGWANJI BUDDHIST TEMPLE (adm. by appli
cation), 119 N. Central Ave., a three-story brick building erected in
1925, belongs to the Jodo Shinshyu sect of the Buddhists. Except for
the cement canopy over the entrance, in the form of a torn, the building
is occidental in appearance. The auditorium, seating 1,000, is simple
and modern, but the main altar is richly Oriental; it holds a small
Buddha, and has intricate red and gilt ornamentation softly lighted by
small electric bulbs; in front are two black pillars, and incense burners.
26. The GRAND CENTRAL MARKET (open Mon. to Fri. 8-6;
Sat. 8 a.m.-Q p.m.), extending through the block from 317-323 S.
Broadway to 314-320 S. Hill St., is the city s largest retail dispensary
of perishable foodstuffs. More than 100 business establishments occupy
the space and between 35,000 and 50,000 shoppers pour through it
daily.
27. ANGEL S FLIGHT (open 6 a.m.-l2:l5 a.m.; round trip fare
5^), 3rd and Hill Sts., is a funicular railway transporting passengers
315 feet up and down the steep slope of Bunker Hill between Hill and
Olive Streets. An observation tower, rising 100 feet above the station
over the mouth of the 3rd Street Tunnel, commands a view of the
distant San Gabriel Mountains. In the years immediately following
its construction by Colonel J. W. Eddy in 1901, the "flight" was an
outstanding tourist attraction. During the 1920*5 it carried as high
as 12,000 passengers a day; this has now dwindled to about three
thousand.
28. The PHILHARMONIC AUDITORIUM BUILDING, 427
W. 5th St., is the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
(see The Arts), and the Temple Baptist congregation. The exterior
of the nine-story structure was remodeled in 1938 on simple, modern
lines. The building was erected in 1906 by Temple Baptist Church
on the site of the old Hazard s Pavilion, the city s first large concert
hall.
29. PERSHING SQUARE, bounded by 5th, 6th, Hill, and Olive
Sts., has brick-paved, palm-shaded walks lined with wooden benches
generally crowded until the late hours of night. The large brick-
paved central plaza is surrounded by banana trees and backed by taller
clumps of bamboo. In its center is a large pool and 1 6-foot fountain
in which water trickles over the sculptured figures of four cherubs.
Formerly called Central Park, it was renamed in 1918 to honor
General John J. Pershing, World War commander.
At the northeast corner of the park is the SPANISH WAR ME
MORIAL, a 2O-foot granite statue showing a Spanish War veteran at
parade rest. Erected in 1900, it was designed by S. M. Goddard.
Nearby is a bronze cannon made in 1751 for the navy of Louis XV
of France; it was captured in 1898 at Santiago, Cuba, by the American
corps commanded by Major General William R. Shaftcr, who pre
sented it to the city.
( hi Fifth Street facing the Philharmonic Auditorium is a heroic
Si XTUE OF BEETHOVEN, gi\en by the personnel of the Philharmonic
158 LOS ANGELES
Orchestra in 1932 and dedicated to William Andrews Clark, Jr.,
founder of the orchestra.
At the northwest corner is the WORLD WAR MEMORIAL, a life-
size bronze figure of a doughboy on an 1 8-foot granite obelisk base.
It was designed by Humberto Pedretti, and placed in 1924. In the
grass, to the right of the walk near the northwest entrance, is a plaque
dedicated "In the memory of Benny, a squirrel." Time was when
Benny achieved wide notice by carrying nuts through the congested
streets around Pershing Square to his various caches; many grieved
and remembered the day in 1934 when the traffic got him. At the
southwest corner is an iron cannon from the U.S.S. Constitution, pre
sented to the city by the American Legion in 1935.
30. The E-shaped, 1 3-story BILTMORE HOTEL, 515 S. Olive
St., has modified Spanish Renaissance details; the red brick walls have
white terra-cotta facing at the top floor. Balconies project from various
floors. Corinthian columns and pilasters ornament the walls of the
street fronts. With 1,500 rooms, this is the city s largest hotel. The
Olive Street building was completed in 1923, the 5OO-room Grand
Avenue addition in 1928. The wide Fifth Street corridor, the Galeria
Real, is hung with paintings ; opening on it is the BILTMORE ART SALON
(open 10 a.m.-6 p.m., 7-9 p.m. daily; free}, in which are shown oils
and water colors, chiefly the work of American particularly Califor-
nian artists.
31. The EDISON BUILDING (open 8-5 Mon.-Fri.), 60 1 W. 5th
St., designed by Allison and Allison, is the 1 3-story home of the South
ern California Edison Company. It has setbacks at the third, fourth,
twelfth, and thirteenth floors, and is faced with granite, limestone, and
buff terra cotta. At night the three-story tower, crowned by neon
lights, is illuminated by colored searchlights. In the marble-trimmed
entrance lobby is Hugo Ballin s allegorical mural Power; in the ele
vator lobby are three murals, Transmission and Distribution by Barse
Miller, and White Coal by Conrad Buff.
32. The SUNKIST BUILDING (open 9-5 weekdays), 707 W. 5th
St., headquarters of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, stands on
ground cut away from the flank of steep Bunker Hill. Designed by
Walker and Eisen in the modern manner, the U-shaped building,
topped by a roof-garden and a one-story tower, has strong vertical lines.
Four murals, by Frank Bowers and Arthur Prunier in collaboration,
enhance the interior: two near the bronze doors at the entrance, and
two in the second floor Board Room. They contrast present orange-
growing methods with those of mission days.
33. The LOS ANGELES CENTRAL PUBLIC LIBRARY (open
9-9 weekdays; only periodical rooms open Sun. and holidays 1-9), 5
St. between Flower St. and Grand Ave., rises from the asymetrically
landscaped five-acre grounds shaded by laurel, acanthus, olive, palm,
and cypress trees. The low, buff-colored stuccoed building was de
signed in a straightforward manner with pylons giving emphasis to the
facade. Over the entrance are sculptures; a mosaic of brilliant Spanish
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 159
tiles in geometric and solar design ornaments the pyramid upon the
central tower. Surmounting the pyramid is a sculptured hand bearing
a torch. The structure, erected in 1926, was designed by Bertram
Grosvenor Goodhue (Carleton Monroe Winslow, Associate) ; the
sculptures are by Lee Lawrie.
The building is the main unit of the municipal library system,
which has 48 branches and 69 book stations. In the United States it
ranks (1939) second in number of books circulated annually, and
fourth in number of books owned.
In the lecture room on the Fifth Street level lectures, forums, con
certs, and art exhibits are held. Adjoining it on the east is the Chil
dren s Court, a patio graced by undulating trees in ivy-topped tile
wells, and an eight-foot fountain of veined sienna marble in lotus
design. Wall carvings have Mother Goose subjects and others favored
by children. On the east wall is a fresco, Stampeding Buffalo, exe
cuted by Charles M. Kassler for the Federal Art Project.
The Ivanhoe Room, south of the court, is for children ; on its walls
are murals of scenes from Scott s Ivanhoe by Julian E. Garnsey and
A. W. Parsons.
In a niche at the head of the Fifth Street stairs on the second floor
is a large, symbolic, expressionless figure of Civilization in Italian
marble and bronze. Guarding the stair top are two black marble
sphinxes with bronze head-dresses, holding plaques inscribed with
excerpts from Plutarch. In the second floor rotunda, with its elab
orately stenciled dome and arches, are 12 murals by Dean Cornwell.
Pale-colored and thickly peopled, they present a pageant of California
history. More pictorial and more deeply colored are the 13 murals of
scenes in state history on the walls of the History Room, south of the
rotunda. They are by Albert Herter.
34.The BIBLE INSTITUTE OF LOS ANGELES, 558 S. Hope
St., a co-educational, nondenominational evangelistic training school,
occupies the 1 3-story south wing of its own building adjoining the
Public Library. In this wing are the classrooms, dormitories, and cafe
teria of the institute. The lO-story central section of the three-unit
structure like the other sections, ornamented with modified Renais
sance details is an auditorium used by the non-sectarian CHURCH OF
THE OPEN DOOR. In the north wing is a privately operated hotel.
Atop the building are two large signs stating in neon-lighted letters,
"JESUS SAVES," and 1 1 manually operated bells upon which hymns are
played three times daily. The Institute, an outgrowth of a young men s
Bible class of 1906, offers day and evening theological instruction, and
grants the degrees of Bachelor of Theology, Bachelor of Christian Edu
cation, and Bachelor of Sacred Music.
35. The 13-story RICHFIELD BUILDING (open 8-5 Mon.-Fri.),
555 S. Flower St., designed by Morgan, Walls and Clements, symbol
izes the "black gold" of the oil fields; upon the black terra-cotta walls
are strong vertical lines accented by gold strips. At the top of the
structure a 130- foot skeleton-steel tower brings the total height above
l6o LOS ANGELES
the city s i5O-foot building height limit; special permission was ob
tained for its erection. Over the main entrance are heroic figures in
gold by Haig Patigian, representing Aviation, Postal Service, Industry
and Commerce. The vestibule is richly decorated in various marbles.
36. The CLIFTON CAFETERIA (open 6 a.m.-8 p.m.), 618 S.
Olive St., locally famous as "the Golden Rule cafeteria," serves some
16,000 meals daily for any price the customer wishes to pay. Each
check, although bearing the regular price of the meal, urges the patron
to pay any sum he thinks fair, or nothing if he wishes. The large
dining room is decorated with a fountain, artificial palms, flowers,
canaries, wall mottoes, and illuminated pictures, most of which depict
Biblical themes. There is organ music, and singing by bus-boys and
girls. An information desk provides free rental, travel, and civic-
government information ; free sightseeing trips are available ; free advice
in planning food budgets is offered; a weekly publication, Food 4 Thot,
distributed free to patrons, prints customers letters and poetic contri
butions, and inspirational paragraphs clipped from other publications;
and a Guests Exchange finds friends for lonely diners. At a second
cafeteria, 648 S. Broadway, with an indoor waterwheel and artificial
rocks, caves, and trees, five-cent "subsistence meals" are served in the
basement (2:15-4 daily) to the needy. The two cafeterias are oper
ated for profit by Clifford E. Clinton, whose civic betterment campaign
was largely responsible for the recall of Mayor Frank L. Shaw in 1938
and the election of Superior Court Judge Fletcher E. Bowron as mayor.
37. The LOS ANGELES STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING
(open weekdays 10-11 a.m.), 618 S. Spring St., is a five-story structure
of simple design with a sturdy granite facade broken at the second
story level by two narrow, grilled apertures. High above the entrance
are three bas-relief panels separated by large fluted pilasters ; the central
panel shows Finance seated on a throne, the bull and the bear systole
and diastole of exchange on either side. The left panel is Research,
and the right Production. The entrance is of bronze and the lobby
and corridor are lined with Sienna travertine. The trading floor is
modeled after that of the New York Exchange. The Stock Exchange
Club and the Stock Exchange Institute have their quarters in the build
ing, which was erected in 1930.
38. The ALEXANDRIA HOTEL, SW. corner 5th and Spring Sts.,
an eight-story building with three griffins on the corners of the third-
floor base, was in its heyday the largest and finest hotel in Los Angeles.
The city s first fire-proof Class A building, it was opened late in 1906.
After more elaborate hotels in the newer business districts were built,
the Alexandria s popularity ebbed, and for several years it was closed.
Modernized and redecorated, it was reopened in 1938.
The Industrial Section
Although Los Angeles is widely known for its manufacture of
motion pictures (see The Movies) and aircraft (see Santa Monica and
Tour 7) t and the extensive commercial development around its harbor
(see The Harbor), relatively few people are aware that it produces
such diversified goods as automobiles, clothing, pottery, and canned fish
in such quantities as to put it in a high place among the industrial
cities of the nation (see The Historic Background).
Although the city s industrial plants are widely scattered, its largest
industrial district is a fairly compact stretch along the railroad-lined
Los Angeles River, plants overflowing the city limits into many small,
new, independent communities that wholly depend upon the fac
tories for their livelihood. The industrial plants described in this sec
tion of the book are representative.
39. The J. A. BAUER POTTERY CO. PLANT (visitors 8-2:30,
workdays), 415 W. Ave. 33, occupying two drab brick plants and
covering a five-acre site, produces pottery glazed in 14 brilliant hues,
as well as the more ordinary red clay pots. Some 25,000 pieces, utiliz
ing more than 15 tons of California clay, are turned out daily for wide
distribution.
Guides show visitors the various processes: the washing, filtering,
and compressing of the clay; the shaping on wheels turned by foot-
treads, or in plaster of Paris molds by jiggermen. An experienced
jiggerman with an assistant turns out an average of 2,000 pieces in an
eight-hour day. After being shaped, the pottery is dried, sponged, and
fired, passing through the hands of some 25 workers. The firing is
done in eight kilns of the old-fashioned type, and tw r o of the newer
tunnel type. The solutions forming the brilliant glazes are mixed by
a secret formula and appear pale and chalk-like when applied to the
pottery after its first firing; they turn to deep rich hues during the
second firing.
40. The LOS ANGELES BREWERY (4^-minute guided tour, 2-5
workdays], 1920 N. Main St., housed in red brick buildings of the
massive Victorian type dominated by a clock tower, is the largest on
the Pacific coast. The plant can daily produce 1,800 barrels of beer,
each holding 31 gallons.
After being served with the brewery s product in a luxurious tap
room, visitors are conducted through the plant to view the steaming of
hops; the mixing and cooking department; the 3OO-barrel fermenting
tanks; the huge, steel, glass-lined storage tanks; the filtering room, with
its great presses and tanks; and the bottling room, where the bottles
161
1 62 LOS ANGELES
are automatically sterilized, cooled, filled, pasteurized, capped, and
labeled. Another production line handles 260 cans of beer a minute.
41. The CAPITOL MILLING COMPANY FLOUR MILL
(open to groups on request}, 1231 N. Spring St., occupies a large group
of brick and cement buildings. Although the exact date of establish
ment is doubtful, the company, whose plant was called the Eagle Mills
until 1853, is believed to be the oldest in Los Angeles. It was the
seventh name in the city s first telephone directory, which listed 91
subscribers.
The mill, which can produce 500 to 600 barrels of flour daily, is
operated completely by electric power.
42. Huge signs call attention to the 15-acre CUDAHY PACKING
COMPANY PLANT (4^-minute guided tour, 9-4 workdays), 803
E. Macy St., the largest meat packing establishment in the far West.
In the IO large buildings and various smaller structures 2,000,000
pounds of meat is prepared weekly for market. Ten million dollars
worth of livestock is slaughtered yearly. On an average the plant
daily slaughters 1,200 pigs, 300 to 500 cattle, 1,200 sheep, and 100 to
200 calves.
Visitors are shown the coolers, where beef is kept at 38 Fahrenheit
pending shipment ; the rooms where ham is boned, rolled, boiled or
baked, and wrapped in cellophane; and the rooms where bacon is sliced
and lard and oleomargarine are wrapped and packed. The killing,
skinning, singeing, washing, and cutting processes can be seen only on
request.
43. The OLD MISSION WINERY (visitors 9-3 workdays), 330
N. Mission Rd., occupies a brick building erected in 1881 and a newer
concrete structure with tile roofs and arched recesses along its walls.
It produces 100,000 to 300,000 gallons of sweet wines and 5,000 to
8,000 gallons of brandy annually. Visitors are shown the fermenting
room, with rows of io,ooo-gallon fermenting tanks; the storage room,
with 3O,ooo-gallon tanks; the pot stills, where alcohol for fortifying
wines is distilled; and the bottling and barreling departments. Samples
of the company s products are offered at the end of the tour.
44. In the rambling old brick LOS ANGELES SOAP COMPANY
PLANT (visited on application; one-hour tour), 617 E. 1st St.,
spreading over 20 acres, some 600 employees produce more than 75
brands of soap. The company was established in 1860, when Los An
geles industry was in its infancy. Visitors are shown the mammoth
boiling vats, the glycerine-extracting vats, the refining process, and the
shaping and wrapping of the soap bars.
45. The COFFEE PRODUCTS OF AMERICA, INCORPO
RATED, PLANT (open to groups on application), 800 Traction
Ave., is a five-story building of red brick and reinforced concrete. The
company processes coffee, tea, and spices. The coffee is imported from
Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Brazil, Java, Arabia,
and Africa, blended, roasted for 16 minutes at a 300 temperature,
THE INDUSTRIAL SECTION 163
cut by large circular knives, and packed in tins under 31 inches of
vacuum.
46. The NATIONAL BISCUIT COMPANY COOKY BAKERY
(visited on application; 45-minute tour}, 673 Mateo St., occupies a six-
story brick-faced building covering nearly half a block. Visitors are
conducted through a child s dream of heaven an inexhaustible cooky
factory. The intricate machines mix, roll, and cut 50 varieties of
cookies, and feed them through gigantic "tunnel" ovens.
47. The CALIFORNIA WALNUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION
PACKING HOUSE (visited on application), 1745 E. 7th St., is a
seven-story tan reinforced-concrete building containing the main offices
and one of the two Los Angeles shelling plants of the co-operative
organization. Approximately 650 workers handle 10,000,000 pounds
of walnuts annually in this plant. The two shelling plants and a ware
house handle the entire crop of the association, averaging 72,000,000
pounds annually.
The walnuts are graded and branded according to size and quality.
Loose, stained, or unshapely nuts are shelled. Visitors see the shelling
process by an automatic cracking machine, with 24 pairs of curved ver
tical jaws; the separation of shells and hand-sorting process; the pas
sage of the meats through a cleaning machine ; and the boxing for whole
sale use by bakers and confectioners, or sealing in vacuum cans for retail
markets.
The state association, a federation of 28 local co-operative walnut
packing groups, was incorporated in 1912 as a non-profit organization,
wholly owned by its grower members. It now represents 8,000 growers
operating 135,000 acres of orchards (see Tour 3), and markets 85 per
cent of the state s walnut crop. Members of the association receive the
actual selling price, less the cost of grading, packing, and selling.
48. The 500 stalls of the LOS ANGELES WHOLESALE TER
MINAL MARKET, 7th St. from Central Ave. to Alameda St., oc
cupy a large two-story concrete building with short projecting wings,
and two similar buildings without wings the three forming a long
narrow open quadrangle covering more than 21 acres. The terminal
is the largest wholesale market in Los Angeles. Some $45,000,000
worth of fruit and vegetables, virtually all of the fresh garden produce
consumed in the city, annually passes through it and the smaller mar
kets nearby.
In the terminal are 105 produce stores, offices of produce brokers
and marketing associations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
accountants, lawyers, doctors; there are also bank branches, telegraph
and express facilities, and even barber shops, beauty shops, and restau
rants. Connected with the market are an enormous cold storage plant,
and four warehouses, the largest, seven stories high.
Trading begins at 3 a.m. except on Sunday. Until long after dawn
there is much hubbub and confusion in the market place as the trucks of
buyers and sellers load and unload their produce.
Most of the market s produce is delivered within a radius of 100
1 64 LOS ANGELES
miles of Los Angeles, though other parts of southern California and
neighboring states are also served. Refrigerator trucks holding 100
tons take fresh fruits and vegetables to Nevada, Utah, Colorado and
Oklahoma, and as far north as Seattle. Train shipments are made to
the Atlantic seaboard.
49. The LOS ANGELES PLANT OF THE GOLDEN STATE
COMPANY, LTD. (visitors 8:30-5 workdays), 1120 Towne Ave.,
covering more than two blocks, employing more than 800 people, and
distributing $25,000,000 worth of milk and butter annually, is the larg
est establishment of its kind in California. The plant, belonging to an
organization that handles a third of the state s milk, is one of seven
large milk distributors and processors in Los Angeles.
Although operating several dairy farms of its own, the company
buys most of its milk from independent producers, over whose dairies
it maintains supervision. The product from the various dairies is
blended to produce uniform quality, pasteurized by being held at a
temperature of 142 for 30 minutes, rapidly cooled to 35, and bottled
by machines that wash, sterilize, fill, and cap the bottles without
manual aid.
50. The PLANT OF THE LOS ANGELES COCA-COLA BOT
TLING COMPANY (visitors), 1334 S. Central Ave., somewhat
resembles an ocean liner. While its gleaming white walls with their
numerous portholes look as though they were constructed of steel plate
they are actually of concrete. The lone tower is a stylized ship s bridge,
and the interior, continuing the nautical motif, is lined with mahogany
and trimmed with stainless steel. The factory is one of i,2OO Coca-
Cola plants in the United States.
Viewing the operations from a promenade deck, visitors see the
battery of six large washing machines, cleaning and sterilizing more
than 50,000 bottles an hour. Other machines fill them with syrup and
charged water, and add a cap.
WYVERNWOOD, spreading over seventy-two landscaped acres
along E. Olympic Blvd. and E. 8th St. between Soto St. and Grande
Vista Dr., is a government-supervised but privately owned and financed
low-cost housing project. With a total of 1,102 units, the project
comprises 142 two-story buildings, 14 acres of lawns, 54 acres of parks
planted to more than 600,000 trees, flowering plants, and shrubs, and a
5-acre children s playground.
Wyvernwood was completed in January 1940 at a cost of $6,200,-
ooo, of which $3,000,000 was a bank loan insured by the Federal
Housing Administration, which requires the owners to set aside 25 per
cent of all income for maintenance and repair, and dictates the rent
schedule. To meet the first requirement a full-time staff of gardeners,
painters, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians is maintained. Rents
for the three-, five-, and six-room apartments, flats, and studios range
from $29.25 to $43.75 a month, unfurnished. Designed for families,
preferably with children, of business, trades, and professional people
with incomes between $125 to $400 a month, the units are rented on
XXXXXXXXXX>X>
Art and Education
Index oj American Design
A STATION OF THE CROSS, MISSION SAN GABRIEL ARCANGEL
PROMETHEUS. MURAL BY JOSE OROZCO
IN FRAY HALL, POMONA COLLEGE, CLAREMONT
Royd Cooper
i : ,S
S
LOGGIA, MISSION SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO
/utter / American Design
Hurton (). Hurt
BELFRY, MISSION SAN GABRIEL ARCANGEL
MISSION SAN FERNANDO
P. W. Carter
Field Museum of Natural History, Chiiago
DETAIL FROM PAINTING, RANCHO LA BREA PITCH POOLS
IMPERIAL ELEPHANT, LOS ANGELES
MUSEUM OF HISTORY. SCIENCE, AND ART
Theodore Baron
*
II . Carter
IN Till-. PI.ANKTAKITM. (.RIFFITH OBSKRX ATORY, LOS ANGELES
YOUNG PUBLIC SCHOOL ARTIST
Board of Education, Los Angeles
M MB III IB
II
? 1
Luckhaus Studio
EXPERIMENTAL PUBLIC SCHOOL, LOS ANGELES
Richard J. Neutra, Architect
THOMAS JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL, LOS ANGELES
Stiles O.Clement, Architect Board of Education. Los Angeles
* l
HOLLYWOOD BOWL
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce
Fair child Aerial Surrey
ML WILSON OBSERVATORY
a thirty-day basis with the verbal understanding that the renter will
remain at least one year.
The architectural style is eclectic, and the buildings are grouped to
avoid monotony through the close proximity of similar designs and
colors. Wide lawns and gardens separate the buildings, all of which
face upon parkways rather than the street. Designed to be earthquake
and fire resistant, exterior walls are of metal-mesh reinforced concrete.
Floors are of one-inch hardwood, walls are insulated against heat and
sound, and each unit is equipped with electric water heaters, gas or elec
tric room heaters, individual electric refrigerators, and gas or electric
ranges.
51. The CALIFORNIA ROTOGRAVURE PLANT (visited on
application), 2801 E. nth St., a one-story brick and glass building,
does commercial rotogravure work, and prints several weekly and
monthly publications.
Visitors see the art department, where pages are designed ; the camera
room, with cameras capable of making a negative two feet square ;
the layout department; the plating and polishing room, where the
copper cylinders are prepared ; the etching room ; and the press room.
The press has a capacity of 24 full newspaper-size pages, eight of them
in color; or 48 tabloid-size pages, with 16 in color.
52. The GENERAL CABLE CORPORATION FACTORY (vis
ited 8-4 workdays), 3600 E. Olympic Blvd., manufactures various
types of electrical conductors. The company designed and manufac
tured the 1. 4-inch hollow copper cable that carries 287,000 volts of
electrical energy from Boulder Dam 271 miles across mountains and
desert to Los Angeles. This cable is 1,640 miles long.
Visitors see the conversion of 2OO-pound copper billets into wire,
the spinning of these wires into cables, and the covering of the cables
with cotton braid and asphalt, to the accompaniment of a deafening
roar of machinery.
53- The low, metal O KEEFE & MERRITT COMPANY FAC
TORY (visited on application), 3700 E. Olympic Blvd., covering six
acres, presents a serrated profile along its sides becaues of its rows of
tilted skylights. It annually produces $2,500,000 worth of gas ranges,
room and water heaters, electric refrigerators, air coolers for desert
homes, and other home appliances, and employs 500 to 600 men. Visi
tors see the various operations of manufacture : rolling and stamping of
sheet metal parts, iron foundry work, and the enameling of stove and
refrigeratoi parts.
54, The LOS ANGELES UNION STOCK YARDS (visitors ad
mitted), 4500 Downey RcL, is the largest in the II western states, oc
cupying approximately 35 acres, 75 per cent of which holds pens for
cattle, sheep, and hogs. It has loading docks, trackage, and six large
scales. The trim administration building of modified Spanish type,
with towers and tiled roofs, is particularly elegant for such a business.
The rancher ships his stock to the yards, addressed to himself or
hi- commission man; there it is weighed on government scales and run
1 66 LOS ANGELES
into sales pens for inspection by the buyers. All sales are on an imme
diate-cash basis. In 1937, 365,037 cattle, 114,405 calves, 90,305 sheep,
and 856,000 hogs were sold from the yard.
55. The PACKING HOUSE OF THE CALAVO GROWERS
OF CALIFORNIA (visitors 8-5 workdays}, 4803 Everett Ave., an
elongated concrete and glass building, packs and ships 85 per cent of
the fruit from southern California s 14,000 acres of avocados. The
plant, together with one in San Diego County, both owned by the
grower s co-operative association, handles as much as 17,000,000 pounds
of avocados a year, direct from the orchards (see Tour 3).
The fruit is carried by belt through a cleaner of revolving brushes,
then to brightly lighted tables for grading and branding. Fruit that
fails to meet the test for branding is sold locally.
Besides avocados, the association handles 85 per cent of the Cali
fornia date crop (see Tour 2), much of the California lime crop, and
its imported citrons and mangoes.
56. The STUDEBAKER PACIFIC CORPORATION PLANT
(visitors 10-2 workdays), 4530 Loma Vista Ave., consists of a building
of modern lines and an older assembly plant of yellow brick. This is
the only branch assembly plant in the United States of the Studebaker
Corporation of South Bend, Ind., and serves the far western states.
A hundred cars can be turned out daily in an eight-hour shift. Such
equipment as tires, batteries, springs, bumpers, paint, and thinner comes
from local factories.
Visitors inspect the paint shop, where a coat of paint is applied and
dried in five minutes; and the assembly line, where, beginning with a
frame, parts are added until the car rolls away under its own power.
57. The massive eight-story WESTLAND TERMINAL BUILD
ING (open 8-^ workdays), 4814 Loma Vista Ave., is topped with an
ornate tower. From it are distributed motor cars, radios, and refriger
ators.
58. Under the saw-toothed roofs of its four-and-a-half-acre plant, the
WOOLWINE-NORRIS CORPORATION (visitors 8-5 workdays),
5119 S. Riverside Dr., manufactures electric ranges and water heaters,
oil-burning space heaters, and sheet metal products. All parts of the
ranges, with the exception of porcelain, are manufactured here. Visi
tors see i o foot shears that cut metal of lo-gauge thickness, stamping
machines that form metal parts under a pressure of 115 tons, electric
spot welding machines, and the range assembly line.
59- The office facade of the U.S. PORCELAIN ENAMEL COM
PANY PLANT (open to groups on request, 8-5 workdays), 4653 E.
52nd Dr., is ornamented with bright "tiles" of porcelain-enameled iron.
Visitors are taken through the metal room, with its lO-foot shears and
115-ton stamping machines; and the rooms where the metal is coated
with feldspar and silica, colored with various oxides, and baked in
ovens at 1,600. In the ovens the minerals are melted into glass and
fused with the iron, producing a durable glossy coating.
60. The MAYWOOD GLASS FACTORY (visited on application),
THE INDUSTRIAL SECTION 167
5615 S. Riverside Dr., a miscellaneous collection of buildings covering
ten acres, manufactures an average of 70 to 80 tons of bottles and jars
a day. Visitors see the two huge furnaces, each with a capacity of 125
tons of molten glass. Silica, soda ash, and lime are constantly fed at
one end of the furnace, while molten glass is measured out at the other,
the exact amount required for each article being released automatically
into the molding machines, from which the bottles are carried on slow
conveyors through long annealing ovens; there they are gradually
cooled until ready for packing.
61. The CONSOLIDATED STEEL CORPORATION PLANT
(open to students and technicians), is entered at the northeast corner
Slauson and Eastern Aves. but is scattered over fifty acres of land.
The steel-fabricating factory with saw-toothed roofs rises behind
sprawling white office buildings of the ranch type. The plant, employ
ing J >35 in busy seasons, ships steel boilers, bridges, cables, derricks,
gates, oil refinery equipment, portable buildings, and towers.
The corporation supplied three ring-seal headgates, costing $120,-
ooo, to the TVA for the Hiwassee Dam in North Carolina, and 40
ring-seal headgates for the Grand Coulee Irrigation Project in Wash
ington ; it fabricated the 2,422 steel towers for the Boulder Dam
transmission line; and fabricated and installed the huge steel dome for
the telescopic lens of the Palomar Mountain Observatory in San Diego
County.
62. The administration building of the CHRYSLER MOTORS AS
SEMBLY PLANT (group tours 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. workdays), SE.
corner Slauson and Eastern Aves., is of the modified Mediterranean
style, with red-tiled roofs and massive oak doors. In the 3O-acre plant
behind it all Plymouth motor cars and Dodge trucks sold in California,
Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii are assembled. The plant has a daily
capacity of 240 cars and 50 trucks, and receives 64 car loads of material
daily.
63. Seen from the air, the 27-acre concrete PLANT OF THE PIO
NEER- FLINTKOTE COMPANY (open to adults on application),
5500 S. Alameda St., forms an intricate pattern, combining curves with
the parallels of serrated roofs. It manufactures a wide variety of as
phalt roofing and waterproofing materials, chipboard, corrugated car
tons, and the like. It is the largest of six factories producing similar
products in the Los Angeles area.
Visitors are first shown the storage rooms, where are stacked thou
sands of tons of baled rags, collected from many parts of the world, and
wood pulp from the forests of northwestern America and Sweden. The
processing operations are seen next: the shredding and mixing of the
raw materials that are then fed from roller to roller of a machine more
than 400 feet long, from which they emerge as the finished product.
In other rooms paper is impregnated with asphalt distilled from oil in
the plant and cut into strip shingles.
64. In the PLANT OF THE CALIFORNIA SANITARY CAN
NING COMPANY, LTD. (visited on application), 5000 Long
1 68 LOS ANGELES
Beach Blvd., many kinds of California fruits and vegetables are proc
essed and canned for a world market. During an average season 7,500
tons of peaches, 5,000 tons of apricots, 7,000 tons of tomatoes, 3,000
tons of spinach, and large quantities of lima beans and ham, pork
and beans, baby lima beans, kidney beans, peas, and olives are handled.
65. The FACTORY OF THE GOODYEAR TIRE AND RUB
BER COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA (two-hour guided tours 9:30
a.m. and 1:30 p.m. workdays), 6701 S. Central Ave., is a group of large
brick buildings on a 74-acre tract planted with lawns and trees. This is
the largest of four major automobile tire manufacturing plants in the
Los Angeles area. This plant, supplying 1 1 Western states, Alaska, and
Hawaii, has a maximum production of 15,000 tires daily, and employs
1,500 to 2,500 workers.
Visitors first see the storage room, where thousands of tons of raw
rubber from the company s own plantations in Sumatra and the Philip
pines are stacked. The raw rubber is cut into small pieces by a machine
called a pie-cutter and thoroughly mixed with chemicals. It is then
pressed together with fabric (strong cotton cords), between large
cylinders. The resulting material is combined with beads of rubber-
covered piano wire to produce a raw tire, which is then cured and
vulcanized with a tread. In another department, compounded rubber
in a long continuous tube is marked off in lengths, fitted with valves,
and cut. The ends are then spliced together by an electric weld process,
forming inner tubes.
66. A w r ide expanse of lawn and flower-beds and the brick administra
tion building of the U.S. ELECTRICAL MOTORS, INC., PLANT
(one-hour tour, ivorking hours}, 2OO E. Slauson Ave., hide the factory
buildings with their saw-toothed roofline. This is the largest producer
of electric motors in the western states.
Visitors follow the making of a motor from the rough castings to
the completed products in the testing department.
r rhe North and East Sections
\orthea>t Los Angeles occupies a corner of the original Pueblo of
i.n- Angeles, and the southern part of Rancho San Rafael, oldest land
-rant in Aha (upper) California, dating from 1784. Eight square
leagues 44^5 square miles comprised the gift of Pedro Fages, fourth
Spanish governor of California, to Jose Maria Yerdugo, in token of the
friendship of a captain for one of his privates on the Portola expedition
of 1769 (see The Historic Background}. Intervening years have
transformed the region into an urban residential section, broken by such
metropolitan features as a large county hospital, a zoo, an anthropologi
cal museum, a university, and four much-frequented city parks.
Streets crossing at oblique angles in the hilly terrain require a close
watch for the markers.
TOUR
5. from City Hall on Main St.; L. from Main on Jrd St.; R. from
jrd on 4th l y l. u h nh becomes E. 4th St.
Crossing the Los Angeles River, East 4th Street traverses BOYLE
HEIGHTS, an area roughly bounded by the river, Brooklyn Ave.,
Indiana St., and 9th St., a section teeming with Jews and Mexicans.
It was named for an Irish immigrant, Andrew A. Boyle, who in the
early days operated a vineyard and winery in the vicinity. In the late
i88o s the section was one of the city s finest residential districts; many
of the old houses still stand, dilapidated and subdivided into cramped
flats; around them are the newer, smaller houses occupied by the rest
of the 2OO,oooodd residents of the district. On the main business
street, Boyle Avenue, which is crossed by 4th Street and lined with
large open-air fruit-and-vegetable stands, 5-and-io cent stores, fish stalls,
and kosher markets, an occasional bronze-skinned Mexican boy with
Uioeshine equipment slung over shoulder darts among gesticulating
shoppers, alert for cut-rate street-corner customers. In the district are
many small, frame Jewish synagogues, several large homes for the
Ji-wiMi aized and blind, two city parks, a hospital, and a girls orphanage.
HOLLENBECK PARK (R), a breathing spot between E. 4th
St., S. St. Louis St., S. Boyle Ave., and Cummings St., covers more
than 20 acres. Lying in a rough curve below the steep landscaped
hills is a five-acre lake (boating). Only small sections of the shore are
visible from any one spot, and unsuspected vistas open with each turn.
169
I7O LOS ANGELES
L. from 4th St. on Soto St.; R. from Soto on Jrd St.
67. CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES (open all hours),
3772 E. 3rd. St., was designed by L. G. Scherer in a highly stylized
adaptation of the Spanish mission type of church. The building, dom
inated by a lofty, metal-capped corner tower, is notable for fine stone
and metal grilles. The traditional beamed ceiling of the nave is in
sharp contrast with the pointed arches bordering the side aisles and the
stepped silhouette of the chancel arch. Over the altar is a slender
silk and gold canopy.
Retrace Jrd St.; R. from Jrd on Soto St. passing out of Boyle Heights;
L. fro?n Soto on Marengo St.; R. from Marengo on N. State St.
68. The 2O-story ACUTE UNIT (adm. Fri. 2-3 p.m.; guide, free),
1 200 N. State St., largest of the 123 structures on the 56-acre grounds
of the LOS ANGELES COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL, stands
on a knoll and is visible from a large part of the city. The building,
of white concrete, is constructed in the wing and set-back style. From
both sides of the long, narrow central mass two large wings extend to
form the four shafts of an H ; front and rear extensions of the central
portion carry a smaller wing on either side. The $13,000,000 building,
completed in 1933 after five years of research and six years of construc
tion, is the composite work of 60 local architects. It has 75 wards, 16
major surgeries, 4 maternity suites, an acre of kitchen space where
10,500 meals a day are prepared for the staff and patients, and a bed
capacity of 2,500.
From the unit an underground passage cuts westward through the
grounds to the red-brick and concrete buildings of the OSTEOPATHIC
HOSPITAL, which is the second of the two divisions in the hospital
administration. Adjacent are the two-story Main Nurses Home and
its cottages, the three-story Laundry, the two-story COMMUNICABLE
DISEASES BUILDING, the two-story PSYCHOPATHIC BUILDING, and a
heavily-barred two-story building for confinement of ailing county jail
prisoners.
The General Hospital is the outgrowth of the Los Angeles In
firmary, opened in an adobe house in the 1 850*5. The first building on
the present site, a two-story frame structure, was erected in 1878.
Today (1939) the institution has a bed capacity of 3,600, which can
be expanded to 5,OOO in an emergency. The average daily ward-patient
load is 2,500. Of the 3,500 employees in the institution, 237 are full-
time physicians and internes, 784 are registered nurses, and 397 are
student nurses; 525 local physicians contribute part-time services free.
The hospital admits indigents able to meet residence requirements
who are acutely ill or maternity cases, indigent emergency, communi
cable disease, and psychopathic cases and county jail prisoners.
L. from N. State on Zonal Ave.; R. from Zonal on Mission Rd.
Forty-six-acre LINCOLN PARK (R), in the angle formed by
Mission Rd. and Valley Blvd., with rolling tree-shaded lawns around
THE NORTH AND EAST SECTION S iyi
a six-acre lake (boating}, is next to Sycamore Grove in popularity for
state society picnics.
69. At the extreme eastern edge of the park is a CONSERVATORY
(open workdays l-$ ; Sat., Sun. and holidays 10-$; free}, in which is
an extensive collection of tropical plants. Other attractions are a picnic
ground (free), and facilities for outdoor sports.
70. A white one-story stucco house with two-story tower rooms at the
ends is the entrance to the LOS ANGELES OSTRICH FARM
(open g-6; adm. 25$, children 10$), 3609 Mission Rd., lone survivor
of several such farms that thrived in southern California in the days
of plume-bedecked feminine headgear. The farm was opened in 1906
during the picture-hat vogue. It now breeds ostriches exclusively for
exhibition on the grounds, in zoos, circuses, and motion pictures. The
birds are sold to foreign markets as well as in America.
71. Behind a white stucco entrance building with a narrow two-story
columned portico over a long, one-story columned porch is the CALI
FORNIA ALLIGATOR FARM (open 9-6; adm. 2tf), 3627 Mis
sion Rd., home of 1,000 alligators of various sizes and ages, from four-
inch newly hatched babies to a 1 3-foot monster 325 years old. Not
counted in the census are the potential gators in the incubators, w r hich
are also on exhibition. The great cannibalistic lizards are segregated,
according to size, in 20 pools on the farm. Some of them perform
tricks for visitors, such as sliding down chutes.
L. from Mission Rd. on Huntington Dr. N.; L. from Ilnntington on
Monterey Rd.; L. from Monterey on Ave. 60.
North of the intersection with Monterey Road, Avenue 60 crosses
a bridge over ARROYO SECO (dry watercourse), a steep-banked
channel that, dry in summer, carries winter rainy-season run-off from
the San Gabriel Mountains into the Los Angeles River.
72. ARROYO SECO PARK is that part of the Arroyo Seco extend
ing from the crossing of Pasadena Avenue in Los Angeles to the south
ern boundary of Brookside Park. In the 276-acre strip, still largely
unimproved, are tennis and horseshoe courts, softball diamonds, bowling
greens, and a children s playground. Northeastward, the Arroyo Seco
forms part of the western boundary of Pasadena (see Pasadena).
R. from Ave. 60 on N. Figueroa St. (US 66, State //).
73. The intersection of North Figueroa St. and Colorado Blvd. af
fords the best view of grayish, dome-like EAGLE ROCK (R), with
a natural formation on its west face which resembles a great spread-
winged eagle; the likeness is most pronounced when the shadows fall
directly downward at noon. The formation was remarked by the
Franciscan explorers and chronicled by many writers of early southern
California historical lore. The rock is privately owned.
L. from N. Figueroa St. on Colorado Bird. (State 134).
Colorado Boulevard is the main business street of EAGLE ROCK
(562 alt., 12,349 pop.), a suburban district settled in the i88o s and
172 LOS ANGELES
incorporated in 1911, when it was approximately nine miles from Los
Angeles. The metropolis eventually surrounded and in 1923 absorbed
Eagle Rock.
L. from Colorado Blvd. on Eagle Rock Blvd.; L. from Eagle Rock
Blvd. on Ridgeview Ave.; R. from Ridgeview on Campus Rd.
74. The 14 buildings on the 85-acre campus of OCCIDENTAL
COLLEGE, 1600 Campus Rd., describe a rough semicircle in the
San Rafael Hills. The buildings, of modified Italian Renaissance type,
are of grayish-white stucco with red-tiled roofs. They have often been
used as the setting for movies with college scenes.
The college, now nonsectarian and co-educational, was founded by
Presbyterian ministers and laymen in Boyle Heights in 1887. The
present campus was acquired in 1910. A thousand-acre tract in the
foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains has been donated to the
college for future expansion.
The college offers courses in liberal arts and natural sciences; a
graduate school grants the Master of Arts degree. The student body
numbers about 750, the faculty 70. There is an outdoor Hillside
Theatre seating 5,000 in addition to the usual college recreational
facilities.
Campus Rd. curves southward and becomes Ave. 48; L. fro?n Ave. 48
on York Blvd.; R. fro?n York Blvd. on Ave. 50 ; R. from Ave. $0
on Figueroa St.
SYCAMORE GROVE PARK, bounded by Figueroa St., Ave. 49,
and the Arroyo Seco, covers 15 landscaped acres adjoining a section
of Arroyo Seco Park. Sycamore Grove is one of the favorite picnic
grounds of state societies. At these affairs thousands of former resi
dents of other states gather annually for speeches, sports, and picnic
lunches. The park, purchased by the city in 1905 and increased to its
present size by donation in 1907, accommodates 28,000 picnickers.
Facilities include a public address system, tables, stoves (free firewood) ,
and tennis courts.
75. CASA DE ADOBE (open 2-5 Wed. and Sun.; free), 4605 N.
Figueroa St., at a corner of the park, is a faithful copy of an early
19th-century southern California house built in 1916 to perpetuate the
home setting of the state s Spanish settlers. It is owned by the South
west Museum.
The one-story yellow-stuccoed, tile-roofed building surrounds a
patio, 50 feet square planted with a profusion of trees and flowers.
The casa is furnished in the manner of the early homes. In the baho
(bath) is a sunken plunge; in a dormitorio (bedroom) is an i8th-cen-
tury bride s chest with the inscription, "Dame un beso, Ramoncita"
(give me a kiss, Ramoncita) ; in another room is a bed once the prop
erty of Pio Pico, last Mexican governor of California. On the walls
is the Caballeria Collection of paintings, most of them brought from
Spain for the missions.
THE NORTH AND EAST SECTION S 173
R. from N. Figueroa St. on Ave. 45; R. from Ave. 45 on Marmion
Way ; L. from Marmion Way on Museum Dr.
76. The SOUTHWEST MUSEUM (open 1-5 daily except Mon.,
Christmas, Independence Day, and during Aug.; free], corner Mar
mion Way and Museum Dr., stands on a hill overlooking the Arroyo
Seco and Sycamore Grove. The long white concrete building has a
taller tile-roofed wing at the rear of one end and a high square tower
with two rows of narrow openings at the other. The museum contains
relics and craft work of the primitive Indians of the Western Hemi
sphere.
The building can be approached through a long tunnel that pene
trates the base of the hill to an elevator under the museum. At the
tunnel entrance is a bright MAYAN PORTAL resembling that at the
House of Nuns at Chichen Itza in Yucatan. Dioramas in the sides
of the tunnel depict the advent of the early Asiatics in America and
progress stages of the Indian cultures.
The Hopi Trail, leading from the base of the hill to the Lower
Lobby, copied from the stone trails of the Hopi sky cities in northern
Arizona, offers an optional approach to the museum.
In the Lower Lobby are general American Indian exhibits. In the
north wing of the Southwestern Indians Room are relics and modern
handcraft of the Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, and Mohave. The North
western Indians Room displays handcraft of Eskimo and of Northwest
Coast Indians. Special displays are frequently exhibited in the Mem
bers Room, where the information desk is situated.
A tepee of tanned skins, and clothing and weapons of the Black-
foot, Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, and Arapahoe, are displayed in the Plains
Indians Room. In the Caracol tower is the Prehistoric Southwest
Room ; here are the relics of prehistory from Southwestern pueblos
and cliff dwellers: stone implements, pottery, shell, stone, and turquoise
ornaments, fabrics woven from yucca and turkey feathers and colored
with brilliant vegetable dyes. In the AUDITORIUM (lectures on Indians
and Southwestern history, travel, and exploration 3 p.m. Sun.. .Yor.
through Mar.; free}, is a large basketry collection. The TOR-
RANCE TOWER contains the museum library, which is devoted
largely to works on archeology, ethnology, and primitive art and history
of the Southwest and of Spanish-America.
Southwest Museum is the outgrowth of the Southwest Society of
the Archeological Institute of America, founded in 1903. The Museum
was incorporated in 1907, and the present building opened in 1914.
Retrace Museum Dr., Marmion Way and Arc. 4$; R. from Arc. 45
on N. Figueroa St.; L. from N. Figueroa on Are. 43.
77. EL ALISAL (the sycamore grove) is on the west side of Arroyo
Seco at the crossing of Ave. 43. The house (visited by appointment;
free} was the home of Charles F. Lummis (see The Arts], whose
efforts were largely responsible for establishment of the Southwest
174 LOS ANGELES
Museum. The house, which overlooks the tree-lined Arroyo Seco, is
built around a patio in which grows a giant sycamore. One of Lummis
colorful yarns was that he built the house himself with the aid of a
12-year-old Indian boy. The walls are made of boulders, and the
rafters and girders are hand-hewn. After Lummis death in 1928 the
property passed into the possession of the Southwest Museum. Al
though a section of it is still occupied by members of the Lummis fam
ily, it serves as a repository for a part of the Lummis collections of
Indian and Spanish artifacts.
Retrace Ave. 43 to Figueroa St.; L. from Ave. 43 on Figueroa; L. from
Figueroa on San Fernando Rd.; R. from San Fernando on Pasadena
Ave.; R. from Pasadena on N. Broadway.
ELYSIAN PARK (open 6 a.m.-8 p.m.}, entrance N. Broadway
at the Los Angeles River, is a 6oo-acre municipal preserve through
whose precipitous, heavily wooded hills wind seven miles of paved
motor roads and 10 miles of winding foot trails. The park is one of
the most rugged and heavily foliaged in southern California; its arroyo-
gashed hills and deep canyons are matted with a tangle of creepers, wild
roses, blue gum eucalyptus trees, drooping pepper trees, and gnarled live
oaks. In shaded areas along the drives are numerous picnic grounds
(tables, stoves, fuel; free) and children s playgrounds.
Part of Elysian Park, and all of the Plaza and Pershing Square
(see Downtown Los Angeles), are on lands set aside for public use
at the founding of Los Angeles in 1781. Although the original 500-
acre Elysian tract has never been privately owned it was not officially
made a park until 1886. Since then much land has been added by
purchase.
At the main entrance is the FREMONT GATE, which honors General
John C. Fremont, volunteer commander of the American forces in the
conquest of California. Beyond it is (L) the PORTOLA-CRESPI MONU
MENT, a gray granite boulder marking the spot where the Spanish ex
ploring party headed by Caspar de Portola is supposed to have made
camp on its way up the state in 1769 (see Pueblo to Metropolis) ; from
this point the party had its first view of the plain to the south on which
Los Angeles was to have its beginning a dozen years later.
78. In the park are the LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPART
MENT TRAINING, SOCIAL, AND RECREATIONAL CEN
TER (open 8-7 daily), with a recreational building, an aviary, a small
zoo, and a firing range for police pistol practice.
79. A RECREATION LOEJGE (open to groups of 25 up ; $3-$s
for use of kitchen facilities), in the southwestern corner of the park,
with accommodations for 175; and CHAVEZ RAVINE, which served
as the potter s field in pueblo days and as the county "pest farm" during
the 1850 and 1880 smallpox epidemics, and which is named for its
original owner, Julian Chavez, city councilman in 1850.
80. The NAVAL AND MARINE CORPS RESERVE ARMORY,
Chavez Ravine Rd. between Paducah and Coronel Sts., at the SW.
THE NORTH AND EAST SECTIONS 175
tip of the park, was completed in 1940 at a cost of $1,000,000. It is
one of the largest naval armories in the country, having a drill deck on
which a thousand-man battalion can be trained. Its dominant structure
is a long, white concrete building of modern design.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSXX4
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
The Northwest Section
This tour, through the northwestern part of Los Angeles, pauses
at Angelus Temple and the former site of Walt Disney Studios, and
it passes such less publicized points as the city s first oil field, and
Griffith Park, the largest municipal park in the United States.
TOUR
S. from City Hall on Spring St. to 2nd St.; R. from Spring on 2nd
St.; R. from 2nd on Glendale Blvd.
The OLD LOS ANGELES OIL FIELD (L), Glendale Blvd.
between Beverly Blvd. and Colton St., was the city s first petroleum pro
ducing area. Ninety-seven flimsy wooden derricks, survivors of the hun
dreds that were in the field at the turn of the century, stand on the slope
with dwellings encroaching upon them. Developed in 1892 by Edward
L. Doheny, the field s production peak has long since passed; as the
wells fall below production cost they are abandoned, the derricks re
moved, and the land is used for stores and dwellings.
ECHO PARK, bounded by Glendale Blvd., Temple St., and Echo
Park and Park Aves., a 3i-acre municipal park in the heart of a
populous residential district, is pleasantly landscaped with many varie
ties of fine ornamental and shade trees. It has an eight-acre lake
(boating). On an island in the north end, reached by an arched
bridge, is one of the park s three picnic grounds (tables, gas stoves;
free). Egyptian papyrus and water lilies growing in the shallows at
this end afford shelter during the nesting season to numerous water
fowl swans, ducks, coots, grebes, and geese. In summer a lush growth
of lotus springs from the water in the lake s northwest arm, the large
pink-and-white flowers attracting many painters and photographers. In
the I Syo s the lake provided water for adjacent farms, and water power
for a woolen mill that stood at Sixth and Pearl (now Figueroa)
Streets.
81. ANGELUS TEMPLE (open to visitors g a.m.- 4:30 p.m. daily;
guides; contributions received), 1 100 Glendale Blvd., an immense, cir
cular, buff-colored concrete building with a setback and a low-domed
roof, is identified by numerous banners and posters, and by electric
signs on its facade and upon the broadcasting towers on the roof; on
the top of the dome is a revolving cross outlined with neon lights at
night, showing red on one side and blue on the other. This is the
mother church of the Foursquare Gospel, founded by Aimee Semple
McPherson.
176
T H H N O R T H W I- S T S li C T ION I 77
Within the auditorium, aisles soft with blood-red carpets lead to
an altar under a great proscenium arch. The ceiling of the huge
uriMipported dome is sky-blue behind fleecy clouds, and light enters
through tall stained-glass windows. The temple has four robed choirs,
several orchestras, bands, and smaller musical organizations, an expen
sive costume wardrobe, a vast amount of stage scenery and properties,
and a 5,3OO-glass communion set. Also in the structure are the tech
nical room and studio of Radio Station KFSG the "Glory Station of
the Pacific Coast" the choir studio, and the Prayer Tower, where
alternating shifts of men and women have kept prayer in continuous
session night and day since the temple opened in 1923. In the foyer
near this tower is a display of X-ray photographs and discarded crutches
offered as testimony to the healing power of prayer. Adjoining the
auditorium on the east is a rectangular five-story buff concrete building
housing the Bible College, the commissary, and the administration
offices.
The temple has 57 departments with many subcommittees. The
weekly payroll is several thousand dollars though many followers de
vote time and services free. Much relief work is done through the
free employment agency, commissary, and salvage department.
The Foursquare Gospel is preached in 400 branch churches in the
United States and Canada, and in 195 missions in foreign countries.
In day and night sessions the Bible College has trained more than 3,000
men and w r omen to spread the Gospel of the Foursquare as evangelists,
missionaries, and ordained ministers. The creator and guiding light of
this institution is Aimee Semple McPherson (see Religion). Though
appearing in the pulpit less frequently than in former years, she usually
conducts the Sunday evening services, which feature sermons profusely
illustrated with costumed dramas.
L. from Glendale Blvd. on Park Ave.; L. from Park on Sunset Blvd.;
L. from Sunset on Parkrnan St.; R. from Parkman on Silver Lake
Bird.; R. from Silver Lake on Bellevue Ave.; R. from Belle-rue on
.Mnheltorena St.
82. The Russian Orthodox CHURCH OF THE HOLY VIRGIN
MARY (open on application at parish house), 658 Micheltorena St.,
is a small white one-story stuccoed building surmounted by a gilded
onion-shaped dome; the three-barred Greek-Catholic cross is fixed
above the entrance. The white interior walls are heavily decorated
with icons of various sizes, most of them with dark, rich, intense colors
outlined in gold against a gold background, many with the Greek-
Catholic cross at the top. One of the icons is a wood carving of the
fifteenth century, and others date from the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. There is but one short bench for the aged and infirm; all
other worshippers stand or kneel during the services, which is in Sla
vonic. Singing, which forms an unusually large and important part
of the services, is unaccompanied by instruments. The choir, usually
consisting of eighteen persons, has a high reputation. The music i- a
1 78 LOS ANGELES
special attraction of the Christmas and Easter celebrations, which
follow the usual dates of these holidays about two weeks later than
those of the western churches because of the eastern church s use of the
Julian calendar.
More than 20,000 people of Russian birth live in Los Angeles and
include widely diverse elements Soviet citizens, Russian gypsies, a
group of Molokans (pacifist sectarians who emigrated because of re
ligious persecution in the latter part of the nineteenth century), Jews,
and finally the "whites" people who fled after the Bolsheviks came
to power in 1917. The Church of the Holy Virgin Mary is one of two
churches supported by the Russian refugees living in and about Los
Angeles.
Retrace J\licheltorena St., Bellevue Ave., and Silver Lake Blvd.; L.
from Silver Lake on W . Silver Lake Dr.
SILVER LAKE RESERVOIR, bordered on the east by Silver
Lake Blvd. and on the west by Silver Lake Dr., lies in a trough-shaped
fold of the rolling hills. Its earth-fill dam, built in 1907 by the munici
pal Department of Water and Power, backs up nearly two thousand
acre-feet of water. Eucalyptus trees and weeping willows stand on its
curving shores. The fine homes of the Silver Lake residential district
dot the surrounding hills.
L. fro?ji W . Silver Lake Dr. on Armstrong Ave.; L. fro?n Armstrong
on W. Silver Lake Dr.; L. from W . Silver Lake on Rowena Ave.;
L. from Rowena on Hyperion Ave.
83. The FORMER WALT DISNEY STUDIOS, 2719 Hyperion
Ave., are a group of cream-colored stucco laboratories and drafting
rooms designed to meet the requirements of making animated films.
They are no longer used since a modern plant has been built at Burbank
(see Tour 7).
Retrace Hyperion Ave.; L. from Hyperion on Rowena Ave.; L. from
Rowena on Los Feliz Blvd.; R. from Los Feliz on Vermont Ave.,
which becomes Vermont Ave. Canyon Rd. at entrance to Griffith Park.
GRIFFITH PARK (open 6 a.m. -8 p.m. daily; Vermont canyon
section open 6 a.m.-n p.m.; free} , into which Vermont Avenue passes
at a point several blocks north of its intersection with Los Feliz Boule
vard, is a 3, 76 1 -acre tract spreading over five square miles in the eastern
half of the mountains that lie north of Hollywood and Los Angeles.
Its 30 miles of winding, paved drives lead to heights from which sweep
ing, town-covered expanses of surrounding country are visible ; 50 miles
of hiking and bridle trails explore spots still more remote. Picnic
grounds (tables, stoves; free) and children s playgrounds are scattered
throughout the lower edges of the park, in canyon mouths and level
roadside areas.
Griffith Park was once part of Rancho Los Feliz, granted to the
widow of Antonio Feliz by the Mexican governor of California in
THE NORTHWEST SECTION 179
1841. Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, the last private owner, donated
the mountain section to the city in 1896. The flat lands west of the
Los Angeles River were purchased by the city from the Griffith estate
after his death in 1919.
84. The GREEK THEATRE (open June to Sept.; hours and adm.
prices vary with performances], Vermont Canyon Rd., presents the
Doric facade (L) of its low ivory-colored concrete stage building to
the street; behind it, on the open hillside rise tiers of seats. The
theatre, built in 1930, with funds for the purpose by Colonel Griffith,
seats more than 4,000. It is used for lectures, concerts, ballets, con
ventions, and civic exercises.
L. from Vermont Canyon Rd. on E. Observatory Dr.
85. The GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY AND PLANETARIUM
(open weekdays //-//, Sun. f holidays 2-11 ; planetarium demonstration
daily 3 and 8:30 p.m.; exhibit halls free f planetarium demonstration
25$), designed by John C. Austin, stands at the crest of an elevation
separating Western and Vermont Ave. Canyons; it is a long, low
grayish concrete structure with a large blackened copper dome in the
center and a smaller revolving dome at each end. Before the building
is an obelisk, designed by Archibald Garner and Gordon Newell, bear
ing the stylized figures and names and life dates of the world s great
astronomers: Hipparchus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and
Herschel. Atop the spire is the early astronomical instrument, the
astrolabe.
In the center of the floor in the main foyer of the building is a
bronze-trimmed marble well in which a 24O-pound brass sphere swings,
suspended from the ceiling by a 4O-foot steel wire. A model of a
pendulum invented in 1851 by Jean Foucault, French physicist, it
demonstrates the earth s rotation upon its axis.
Halls extending from the foyer contain the museum of physical
science divided into four departments: astronomy, physics, chemistry,
and geology. The astronomy section contains a large model of the
moon as it would appear if only 500 miles away, pale and pitted with
craters, its strange mountains casting creeping shadows as a traveling
overhead light creates an illusion of sunrise and sunset. The exhibit
includes a mechanical model of the solar system and an excellent col
lection of meteorites. The physics section includes an oscilloscope for
graphing visitors voices, the Wilson Cloud Chamber, spectra of gases,
discharge of electricity in vacua, the majority of which may be operated
by the observer; a comprehensive exhibit of chemical elements, fluores
cent minerals, geological formations and other phenomena. A 12-INCH
REFRACTOR TYPE telescope (open 7 to 10:30 p.m. on weekdays, earlier
when objects of special interest are visible in sky; free) is mounted in
the East Dome.
Under the great Central Dome is a circular 5OO-seat auditorium
housing the planetarium. Popular lectures on astronomical subjects are
given, accompanied by sky views and other illustrative material pro-
ISO LOS ANGELES
jected on the concave ceiling by the Zeiss Planetarium, a large and
complex stereopticon machine.
The observatory was built in 1935 with funds set aside for the
purpose in the will of Colonel Griffith.
R. from E. Observatory Dr. on W. Observatory Dr.; L. from W .
Observatory on Western Ave. Canyon Rd.
86. FERN DELL (open 6 a.m.-n p.m., picknicking facilities; free),
in the southwestern end of the park is a heavily wooded ravine with
a tumbling brook, rock pools, and bowers of ferns ranging in variety
from large tree-ferns to tiny moss-like specimens. They have been
growing there from the time when, according to legend, the ravine
was used by the Cahuenga Indians for tribal council meetings, and called
Mococahuenga (council grounds of the Cahuenga).
Retrace Western Ave. Canyon Rd. to W . Observatory Dr.; L,. from
Western Ave. Canyon on W. Observatory; L. fro??i W. Observatory
on Mt. Hollywood Dr.; L. frorn Mt. Hollywood on Mineral Wells
Dr., which becomes Crystal Springs Dr.
87. In the northeast corner of Griffith Park is (L) the CALIFORNIA
NATIONAL GUARD AIRPORT (open 9-5), entered from River
side Dr. east of the intersection with Crystal Springs Dr. This is the
home station, Fortieth Aviation Division of the California National
Guard. A military radio station (CUS) and two steel hangars are on
the field.
R. from Crystal Springs Dr. on Griffith Park Dr.; R. from Griffith
Park on Zoo Dr.
88. The ZOO (open 7-4:30; free), at the end of Zoo Dr., is in a
rugged box-gorge in the eastern face of the Griffith Park Hills.
Because of limited maintenance funds, the zoo although in existence
since 1912 is still in a state of development. In 1939 seven cageless
moat-fronted pits for lions and bears, and a lo-cage house for monkeys
were constructed. The zoo is well-stocked with birds, small animals,
herbivores, and lions, but has only one elephant. More large animals
are being acquired. Upon the hills above is a high craggy pinnacle
called BEE ROCK, reached by hiking trails.
KKKK^^^^
The Wu shire and West Sections
This tour begins in the city s downtown section and ends near the
Pacific Ocean; it leads through the Wilshire district just south of
Hollywood, filled with fine apartment houses and smart shops; and it
passes several beautiful churches and the Brea Pits, the richest source
of Pleistocene remains in the world.
TOUR
S. from City Hall on Spring St., R. from Spring on Sixth St., L. from
Spring on Figueroa St., R. from Figueroa on Wilshire Blvd.
With the progressive decentralization of the city s business district,
which began in the 1920*8, Wilshire Boulevard has become the most
important of the newer metropolitan arteries. Many of the larger
shops and department stores have moved to the five-mile section be
tween Westlake Park and Fairfax Avenue; others have opened branches
there, often finer than the parent store.
WESTLAKE PARK, between Alvarado and Parkview Sts., is divided
by Wilshire Boulevard. The park, with a large lake (boating}, is
landscaped with a lush growth of trees, shrubs, and grass, and has a
children s playground and a picnic ground (tables, gas stoves; free},
both in the southwest corner.
89. At the eastern Wilshire Boulevard entrance is (L) an eight-
foot black cement nude, PROMETHEUS the firebringer, with torch
and globe. It was executed by Nina Saemundsson for the Federal Art
Project and erected in 1935.
90. At the western Wilshire Boulevard entrance is (L) a STATl K
OF HARRISON GRAY OTIS, for 31 years publisher of the Los
Angeles Times. It was designed by Paul Troubetzkoy.
91. Overlooking Westlake Park is the OTIS ART INSTITUTE
((/unit s T2-I f 4-5 p.m.; free}, 2401 Wilshire Blvd., a county-main
tained school of fine and applied arts housed in three white stucco
buildings of the residential type with red-tile roofs, numerous orna
mented chimneys, and a columned entrance porch. As The Bivouac,
the place was the home of ( his, who bequeathed it to the county for its
present USC. Facing Park View Street, on the institute grounds, is a
14-foot L ranite MODI-I. OF TMI-: OLD TIMF.S Hni.mxr,.
LAFAYETTE PARK, \ViNhm- Blvd. between Lafau-tte Park
PI. and Commonwealth Ave., is a landscaped hollow of winding walks,
lawn-, and bosky retreat>.
[81
l82 LOS ANGELES
92. The STENDAHL GALLERY (open 9-5:30; free), 3006 Wil-
shire Blvd., is one of the oldest commercial art galleries in the city,
offering exhibitions by contemporary artists of established reputation
and showing, in a rear patio, work in experimental forms.
93. BULLOCK S WILSHIRE BUILDING, 3050 Wilshire Blvd.,
a branch of the downtown department store, was designed by John and
Donald Parkinson with a striking use of buff terra cotta, green copper,
and glass. Above the two-story base, a slender six-story tower with
marked vertical lines and irregular set-back for three stories thrusts its
blunt, copper-sheathed nose against the sky. A central foyer, a cube
with high marble walls, is accented by vertical panels of glass and metal.
Each department was planned as a separate unit, with its own design,
decoration, and materials.
94. The elaborate new five-story I. MAGNIN CO. BUILDING,
SW. corner Wilshire Blvd. and New Hampshire Ave., was designed
by Myron Hunt and H. C. Chambers. The first-story base is of black
granite, contrasting sharply with the dazzling white Colorado Yule
marble of the upper stories. Brilliant nickel-silver trim divides the
black from the white. The interior, furnished in shades of apricot, has
indirect lighting effects like those achieved by Parisian artists and
technicians.
95. IMMANUEL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (adm. by appli
cation at office; guides; free), SW. corner Wilshire Blvd. and S.
Berendo St., was designed in a modern adaptation of the Gothic. On
one side of the arched entrance is a tall bell tower, on the other a lower
and slenderer tower abutted by a secondary entrance. On the boule
vard facade five lancet windows rise above the entrance to a rose win
dow of stained glass portraying the nativity; along both sides of the
building are stained glass windows depicting events in the life of Christ.
Within are Gothic hammer beam trusses, columns and arches, oak fur
nishings, and huge Gothic chandeliers all harmonizing with the massive
exterior. In addition to the two-thousand-seat main auditorium are a
chapel, halls, libraries, lounges, and a gymnasium.
96. The BROWN DERBY CAFE NO. i (always open), 3377 Wil
shire Blvd., an incongruous combination of a huge derby hat and a
tile-roofed extension to the rear, is typical of the architectural fantasies
that dot many of the city s major streets. It lures its customers with
the slogan: "Eat in the Hat."
97. The AMBASSADOR HOTEL, 3400 Wilshire Blvd., a vast
rambling structure whose spreading tile-roofed wings faintly suggest
the buildings of northern Italy, sits far back from the street behind
a huge expanse of lawn and is surrounded by its cottages. In the hotel
are a bank, brokerage office, post office, library, 35 retail shops, and a
motion-picture theatre; on the grounds are a swimming pool with arti
ficial beaches of white sand and an i8-hole miniature golf course.
98. The WILSHIRE BOULEVARD CHRISTIAN CHURCH
(adm. by application at office) NE. corner Wilshire Blvd., and S. Nor-
mandie Ave., is recognized by its tall red-tile-roofed campanile. In the
THE WILSHIRE AND WEST SECTIONS 183
west wall of the basilica-type auditorium is a rose window copied from
that in the Rheims cathedral.
99. Dominating the WILSHIRE BOULEVARD TEMPLE OF
B NAI B RITH (Children of the Covenant), NE. corner Wilshire
and Hobart Blvds. (open during services, Fri. 7:30 p.m., Sat. JO a.m.),
largest temple of the Jewish faith in Los Angeles, is a low, immense,
mosaic-inlaid dome 135 feet in diameter, surrounded by a base capped
with small tapering spires. Broad Kasota stone steps lead to a mag
nificent triple entrance of Italian marble under a huge rose window.
Beyond the massive East Indian teakwood doors is a gold-and-black
foyer of Italian marble. Within, Byzantine columns of black Belgian
marble rise to the base of the domed ceiling which is finished in dull
gold and from which hang eight cast-bronze chandeliers designed in
the manner of the ancient prayer spice boxes. The altar, ark, and choir
screen are of carved, inlaid mahogany and walnut, framed in black
marble and mosaic. Hugo Ballin s Warner Memorial paintings, de
picting biblical and post-biblical themes, enrich with glowing color the
three lunettes and broad frieze above the mahogany wainscoting. In
the rear of the main building is a three-story extension, flanking an open
court and housing schoolrooms, halls, and offices.
100. The WILSHIRE METHODIST CHURCH (adm. daily ex
cept Tues. by application at office), SW. corner Wilshire and Plymouth
Blvds., has a very tall clock tower at one corner inspired by the Tor-
racio of Cremona, Italy. The design of the facade is based upon that
of the church of St. Francis at Brescia, Italy. The building is an out
standing example of poured concrete construction.
In the ceiling of the nave the dark, profusely-patterned structural
members are emphasized, intensifying the beauty of the rose window.
The pulpit and lectern are copied from notable Italian pieces.
101. COULTER S BUILDING, Wilshire Blvd. between Ridgeley
Dr. and Hauser Blvd., a four-story commercial structure designed in
1938 by Stiles O. Clements and Irving L. Osgood, is one of the few
large buildings of a very modern type in Los Angeles. In the heavy
white concrete walls, rounded at the corners, continuous horizontal
bands of glass brick serve as windows. A vertical panel of black glass
cuts a recess of 32 feet wide into the front face of the building from
doorway to roof.
R. from Wilshire Bird, on Cur son ./;<.
Thirty-two acre HANCOCK PARK, on the north side of Wilshire
Blvd. between W. 6th St., Curson Ave., and Ogden Dr., is notable for
La Brca Pits. The park, piven to the county in 1916 by Major G.
Allan Hancock, an oil magnate, was once part of Rancho La Brea
(Tar Ranch), whose square league of territory covered most of the
Wilshire district and part of Hollywood.
102. LA BREA PITS, in the eastern end of the park, are ugly black
bogs where oil and tar bubble slowly to the surface from subterranean
pools. In the rainy season a film of water camouflages the sticky quag-
184 LOS ANGELES
mire, forming a trap for the unwary, as it did long ago when prehis
toric animals, gathering here to drink, were caught and preserved for
the enlightenment of modern science. About one quarter of the asphalt
pockets or pits, of which there were formerly more than 100, have
yielded specimens that make them the richest source of Pleistocene or
Glacial Epoch remains in the world. The pits are the remnants of
small craters formed by the explosion of gas in the oil-bearing strata
below. Asphalt oozed into the basins, creating viscid black lakes.
Thousands perhaps millions of years ago the region of these craters
was an open, well-watered plain, bathed in more fog and rain than
descends on southern California today. Forests of pine, juniper, and
spruce shaded the now barren flatlands. Foraging among the thick
grasses and trees were great animals, whose forebears had come to this
continent from Asia by way of Bering Straits: the imperial mammoth,
12 to 15 feet high at the shoulder; the mastodon; the giant ground
sloth ; the flesh-eating short-faced bear, larger than the present-day
Kodiak bear; the great lion and saber-toothed tiger; and the Teratornis,
a bird that had a wing spread of at least 12 feet. Sometimes one of
these creatures, coming to a pool to drink, tumbled or was pushed in
by a thirsty neighbor. The frantic screams of the animal, trapped in
the tar beneath the shallow surface of rainwater, attracted the huge
flesh-eaters, who jumped in to enjoy an easy meal, only to meet the
same fate as the intended victim. Through the ages the carcasses
sank deeper and deeper into the sticky mass, and the flesh disintegrated,
but the bones were preserved by the tar.
The Indians used the tar for waterproofing roofs of huts, as did
early Spanish settlers. In refining the asphalt for commercial use
Major Hancock is said to have removed and burned great piles of the
prehistoric bones, not realizing their value to science until he found
a nine and a half-inch tooth. This he gave to William Denton, an
amateur paleontologist, who identified it as belonging to a saber-toothed
cat. Although Denton published an account of the find the remaining
fossils were undisturbed Hancock s asphalt-refining venture having
been a commercial failure until 1905, when W. W. Orcutt, an oil
geologist, sent specimens to the University of California at Berkley.
The result was a scramble of paleontological expeditions by the uni
versity, Occidental College, the Los Angeles High School, the Southern
California Academy of Sciences, the Los Angeles Museum of History,
Science, and Art, and by individuals. In 1915, when excavation ended,
the museum alone had collected some 600,000 specimens.
At Hancock Park the Los Angeles County Park Department has
attempted to recreate as nearly as possible the scene as it was in the
Pleistocene Age ; flora resembling that of the period has been planted,
and life-sized groups of representative animals of the time, executed
in stone by Herman T. Beck, have been placed among the pits. To
prevent cats, dogs, and even humans from tumbling into the sticky bogs
and starting a record of this age for future scientists, stone parapets
have been constructed around most of the pits. Plans have been adopted
T H E \V I L S H I R I. AND WEST S E C T I O X S 185
for the erection of a museum building over one of the pits, a feature
of which will be a passageway cut down into the tar where the visitor
may view, through plate glass, the interior of the pit as it existed when
the animals were trapped.
Retrace Citrson Arc.; l\. tram Curson on Wiltshire Bird.; L. from
Wilshire on McCarthy I ista.
103. CARTHAY CENTER PARKWAY, in the middle of Mc
Carthy Vista between Wilshire Blvd. and San Vicente Blvd., is strewn
with various memorials boulders, trees, and statuary. Southwest of
San Vicente Boulevard it continues as White Esplanade, a path for
pedestrians only.
The JEDEDIAH STRONG SMITH BOULDER is at the corner of Wil
shire Blvd. and McCarthy Vista. Smith (1798-1831), that rare crea
ture, a fur trapper who was a praying Methodist, was the first Ameri
can to reach California by a cross-continental route; he arrived in 1826.
At the San Vicente Blvd. intersection is a MEMORIAL Si NDIAL mounted
on brick from Mission San Juan Capistrano (see Tour 4}-
In the trianguler island at McCarthy Vista and San Vicente Blvd.
is the FORTY-NINER STATUE, slightly larger than life-size. The figure
is booted and long-haired; a small stream of water pours from his gold-
pan onto a boulder. The statue, designed by Henry Lion, is dedicated
to the men of the first gold rush and to Daniel O. McCarthy (1830-
1919), a forty-niner who became a publisher. Carthay Center, a real
estate subdivision of the 1920*5, was named for him, "Carthay" being
a deliberate euphonious corruption of "Carthy."
On White Esplanade, at San Vicente Blvd., is a BUST OF JUAN
BAUTISTA DE ANZA, Spanish commander who led colonists across the
deserts of Sonora, Arizona, and California in 1775-76 to settle the
coast. The bust, by Henry Lion, w r as placed in 1927. Directly south
west along the esplanade is a small CHINESE PEACH TREE, presented
by the Chinese consul in Los Angeles to commemorate the premiere
of The Good Earth at the Carthay Circle Theatre. On White Espla
nade at Commodore Sloat Drive is the "Snou shot-" Thompson Boulder,
with a bronze plaque showing the In-whiskered face of Thompson, a
Norwegian who from 1855 to 1876 carried mail over the Sierras to
isolated camps on his homemade skis, rescued the l<>-4, and rendered
aid to the needy during the snowbound months. To the rear of the
boulder are two young Sequoia semperrin-ns (redwood trees), native
to the northern California coast.
104. Renowned as the scene of motion-picture "world premieres," the
CARTHAY CIRCLE THEATRE (open only dunn<, perform
ances] 6316 San Vicente Blvd., is a white concrete building trimmed
in bright blue and dominated by a high tower ornamented with multi
colored tiles and equipped with searchlights.
The theatre i> something of a repository for Californiana. In the
first floor lobby is a painting, California s First Theatre, by Frank
Tenney Johnson, depicting the Eagle Theatre built in Sacramento in
1 86 LOS ANGELES
1849. Jedediah Smith at San Gabriel, by Alson Clark, in the main
lobby mezzanine, shows the scout s arrival at San Gabriel Mission on
November 27, 1826. Painted on the drop curtain is An Emigrant
Train at Donner Lake, by Frank Tenney Johnson, a tribute to the ill-
fated Donner Party.
The Southwest Section
The route of this tour, through the mixed commercial and older
residential section of the city, passes the buildings of two large metro
politan newspapers, a hospital devoted exclusively to the treatment of
crippled children, and two magnificent churches; and cutting across the
campus of the University of Southern California, it ends at Exposition
Park, in which are the Los Angeles Coliseum, municipal swimming
pools, and the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and
Art.
TOUR
S. from City Hall on Main St.; R. from Main on Olympic Blvd.; L.
from Olympic on Broadway.
105. The LOS ANGELES EXAMINER BUILDING (open by ar
rangement], I in S. Broadway, is a two-story tile-roofed building of
buff concrete topped by a large, low tower with a squat, tile-covered
dome supporting a slender lantern. This is a reproduction of the Cali
fornia Building at the 1893 World s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
The structure is the plant of the Los Angeles Examiner, a morning
Hearst-chain newspaper. Visible from the street on the Broadway side
are (L) five giant presses, each with a capacity of 32,000 forty-eight-
page papers an hour.
R. from Broadway on I2th St.; L. from I2th on Trenton St.
106. The LOS ANGELES EVENING HERALD AND EXPRESS
BUILDING (open weekdays 8:30-5; guides}, 1243 Trenton St., is a
three-story cast-cement structure with modified Spanish Renaissance de
tails. Much natural limestone decoration in profusely intricate Churri-
guerresque (Mexican baroque) design is a remarkable feature of the
building, which was designed by Morgan, Walls, and Clements and
completed in 1925. It is the plant of the Los Angeles Evening Herald
and Express, a unit of the Hearst newspaper chain. It has more than
three and one-quarter acres of floor space and the 24 press units, set
on vibration-proof foundations, have a capacity of 216,000 thirty-two-
page papers an hour each.
L. from Trenton St. on Pico St.; R. from Pico on Flower St.
107. The LOS ANGELES ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL (visited
by (irrant/t-mfnt J-./ weekdays, 10-4 Sun.}, 2424 S. Flower St., is a
187
1 88 LOS ANGELES
group of two- and three-story buildings of miscellaneous designs dom
inated by a buff-concrete Administration Building with a domed cupola.
The institution, maintained by the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Founda
tion, is the only hospital in southern California exclusively for the treat
ment of crippled children. Some 4,000 children are treated annually,
most of them without charge. Occupational therapy and the usual
education under teachers provided by the board of education supple
ment orthopaedic care.
R. from Flower St. on W . Adams Blvd.
108. ST. JOHN S EPISCOPAL CHURCH (open 7-5 daily), 514
W. Adams Blvd., is designed in the manner of an eleventh-century
Florentine church. Above the entrance, in the light-gray Tufa-stone
facade, is a large rose window set in a carre of bas-reliefs by S. Car-
tamo Scarpitta. The ceiling in the main auditorium is a copy of that
in the Church of San Minato in Florence. The Corpus on the rood
beam and the Christus above the altar were carved from oak by a
protege of Anton Lang of Oberammergau.
io8a. The headquarters of the AUTOMOBILE CLUB OF
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (open 9-5 daily), 2601 S. Figueroa
St., consists of 2 buildings each 3 stories in height, surmounted by a
loo-ft. tower. Designed by Hunt & Hunt and Roland E. Coats, archi
tects, it was completed in 1923 at a total cost of $2,052,000. The
buildings are of reinforced concrete construction of Spanish design,
80 ft. wide, 267 ft. long on Figueroa St., and 208 ft. on Adams. The
membership numbers 126,000, and maintains 34 district and 13 sub-
offices, and is the largest independent club of its character in the United
States.
109. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL ROMAN CATHOLIC
CHURCH (always open), 621 W. Adams Blvd., designed by Albert
C. Martin, is a buff-colored reinforced concrete edifice in the Spanish
baroque style with a tile-inlaid dome at a height of ninety feet over the
transept crossing and a tall bell tower with a spire at the left front cor
ner. The building, erected in 1925 as a gift from Edward L. Doheny,
oil multimillionaire, is decorated on the outside with statuary and
friezes of Indiana limestone.
The interior is embellished with murals, polychromed carving,
marble, and bronze. The high marble altar is against a retable of red
marble with a high-relief carving of The Last Supper. The pulpit is
carved from a single block of red marble. Above the altar is a taber
nacle of gilded bronze; behind it is a great gilded and polychromed
reredos, flanked by elaborately carved French walnut parclose screens.
R. from W. Adams Blvd. on Chester PI.
Majestically staunch against the general decay of the West Adams
residential district are the 10 palatial homes on CHESTER PLACE
(speed limit 10 m. an hour), a street two blocks long in a twenty-acre
residential park, owned (except for one acre) and developed into
THE SOUTHWEST SECTION 189
estates by Edward L. Doheny, oil magnate, whose widow occupies
(i939) the grand brick-red plaster house, at No. 8, built about 1898.
Arched iron gateways, brick walls surmounted by ornamental iron work,
great old trees festooned with bougainvillea and honeysuckle, formal
gardens and spacious lawns remain little changed in appearance from
the days when much of West Adams district was no less splendid than
the estates of Chester Place.
Retrace Chester PL; L. from Chester on St. James Park Dr.
West of the mansions of Chester Place are the old-fashioned dwell
ings of ST. JAMES PARK, another once fine residential section.
Although a few of the houses preserve much of the dignity of their
past, most of them are ending their years as low-priced boarding and
rooming houses.
L. from St. James Park Dr. on Scarff St.; R. from Scarff on W . Adams
Blvd.
1 10. The SECOND CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST (open
by arrangement], 948 W. Adams Blvd., is faced with white glazed
brick and has a lofty Corinthian portico. Above the dull-green tile
roof is a large dome sheathed in greenish copper.
L. from W . Adams Blvd. on Hoover St.; L. fro in Hoover St. on W .
Jefferson Blvd.
111. The SHRINE CIVIC AUDITORIUM (open 9-5 workdays,
g-12 m. Sat.), 665 W. Jefferson Blvd., a very large ochre-colored con
crete building with Moorish architectural motifs, has a domed cupola
at each end. The meeting place and headquarters of the Al Malaikah
Temple, a division of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the
Mystic Shrine, it is also used for grand opera, concerts, conventions,
and the like. The cupolas and the loggia along the western facade give
it a mosque-like appearance in keeping with the Arabian-Egyptian cos
tumes, symbols, and ceremonies affected by the order. The auditorium,
built in 1925-26 at a cost of $2,690,000, seats more than 6,400. Its
stage is unusually large. Adjoining the auditorium on the north is the
pavilion-ballroom, with floor space for 7,500 dancers, or 5,200 dim-rs:
a mezzanine balcony has space for 3,200 more.
R. frnm Jefferson Blvd. on l : igneroa St.
112. Standing well back from the street in a copse is the FIGUER( )A
ADOBE (adrn. on application}, 3404 S. Figueroa St., built in 1847 by
Ramon Figueroa, brother of the Mexican imu-rnor ( iN.^o) of Califor
nia whose name was given by the American conquerors to the street on
which the house stands. The gabled roof, dormers, and other addi
tions, some of which have been built in later years, are departures from
the typical adobe simplicity.
I9O LOS ANGELES
R. from Figueroa St. on 34th St.; L. from 34th on University Ave_.
113. The UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Uni
versity Ave. between 34th St. and Exposition Blvd., is a nonsectarian,
co-educational institution spreading over a 45-acre campus. Founded
in 1879 by the Southern California Conference of the Methodist Epis
copal Church, the university remains under its general control. With a
faculty of more than 700, a winter-session student enrollment of 9,000,
and with 24 schools and colleges housed in 18 buildings, 10 of which
have been erected since 1921, it is the largest and oldest university of
continuous existence in southern California.
Named in honor of the university s fourth president, the GEORGE
FINLEY BOVARD ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, University Ave. at 36th
St. is a red-brick, red-tile-roofed structure with early Italian Renais
sance details. The massive central tower, strengthened by eight brick
buttresses, bears heroic statues by Caspar Gruenfeld of great educators,
statesmen, and philosophers.
At the left front corner, mounted on a lo-foot pedestal, is an eight-
foot statue of an armed Trojan warrior, the symbol adopted by the
university in 1924; it was designed by Roger Noble Burnham.
Opposite the Administration Building is ALUMNI MEMORIAL
PARK, an open lawn planted with sycamores and traversed by walks.
Beyond it is the EDWARD L. DOHENY, JR. MEMORIAL LIBRARY, a
large, double-winged four-story building of a modified Italian Roman
esque style with walls of light-red brick, trimmed with limestone. It
was built in 1932 at a cost of $1,105,000 by Edward L. Doheny.
The ALLAN HANCOCK FOUNDATION BUILDING, SE. corner Uni
versity Ave. and 36th St., is a four-story structure containing more
than loo laboratories furnished with the latest equipment for natural
sciences, research, two auditoriums, special stages for scientific demon
strations and equipment for the projection of colored motion pictures,
and four drawing rooms for musicales, receptions, and exhibits.
The STUDENT UNION BUILDING, SW. corner University Ave. and
36th St., an ornate three and a half story red-brick and terra cotta
structure designed in the manner of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, is
the social and recreational headquarters for students and faculty.
SCIENCE HALL, SW. corner University Ave. and 36th PL, houses
the College of Pharmacy and the departments of natural and chemical
sciences. The LAW BUILDING, SE. corner 36th PL and University
Ave., has a two-story-high lobby that serves as a student common
room. The library has 47,673 volumes, 3,000 pamphlets, and many
current periodicals. Adjoining the Law Building is BRIDGE HALL,
in which are the departments of geology, engineering, political science,
comparative literature, and languages.
The COLONEL SEELEY WINTERSMITH MUDD MEMORIAL HALL
OF PHILOSOPHY (R), University Ave. and 37th St., with a square
slender clock tower, was designed in Lombardic Romanesque tradition.
It contains the Mudd Collection of I3th, I4th, and I5th century manu-
THE SOUTHWEST SECTION IQI
scripts, and the incunabula of ancient philosophers. It has adminis
tration offices, classrooms, incunabula room, and collateral and main
library halls.
L. from University Ave. on Exposition Blvd.
EXPOSITION PARK (grounds always open; free}, bounded by
Exposition Blvd., Figueroa St., S. Park Dr., and Menlo Ave., is a large
public park operated jointly by the state, county, and city. The park
lands were once part of a tract used by the Southern District Agricul
tural Society as a fair grounds and race course. Their venture ended
in failure in 1892 and the tract lay unused until the present park
was opened with public funds in 1910.
114. The MEMORIAL GATEWAY, at the central entrance to
Exposition Park from Exposition Boulevard, is flanked by two large
concrete monoliths commemorating the Tenth International Olympiad
whose opening and closing ceremonies were held in the park s coliseum
in 1932.
115. The SUNKEN ROSE GARDEN, beyond the gateway, is a
seven-acre plot planted with 15,000 rose bushes of 118 varieties. The
blooming season begins in March or April and lasts nine months. Four
white stone pergolas and four large sculptures are in a balanced arrange
ment near the corners of the rectangular plot. A fountain with a lily
pool is in the center.
116. The STATE ARMORY (open Mon. eve.; free), east of the
Sunken Rose Garden, a two-story red-brick building, is the headquarters
and training barracks of the i6oth Infantry and other detachments of
the National Guard.
117. South of the Sunken Rose Garden is the STATE EXPOSI
TION BUILDING (open 10-4 weekdays except Wed. afternoon,
Sun. and holidays 2-5), an E-shaped two-story structure with walls of
dark-red tapestry brick ornamented with terra cotta, designed by Na
than Elery. It contains a permanent exhibition showing state re
sources, industries, and recreational features. A wide hallway lined
with exhibit cases leads from the main entrance to the two-story main
hall, which receives light from the ceiling through four stained-glass
panels showing historical California structures ; in the hall is an enor
mous relief map of the state. In the west wing, decorated with murals
of California fruits and flowers, are the horticultural exhibits, and
models of vineyards and orchards. In the southwest wing is the Hall
of Animal Industries, with model ranches and natural habitat groups
of fish and game found in each county. In the East Hall is the mining
division, with models of oil fields, coal and gold mines, and lumber
camps; on the wall is a large map showing the Bret Harte trail, the
counties mentioned in his stories, and the places incident to Mark
Twain s life in the gold country. In the basement are exhibits of state
park facilities and a model section of a redwood forest with living trees.
118. The LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF HISTORY,
SCIENCE, AND ART (open weekdays 10-4, Sun. and holidays 2-5),
192 LOS ANGELES
originally housed in the tridomed red-brick structure west of the Sunken
Rose Gardens, now occupies the concrete addition adjoining the old
building in the rear.
In Anthropology Hall is a very large and well-preserved collection
of mammal remains, dug from La Brea Pits in Hancock Park (see the
If ilshire and West section). Grouped about the skeleton of a great-
tusked Imperial Elephant, four times the height of a man, are skeletons
of the sabre-toothed cat, short-faced bear, dire wolf, giant ground
sloth, western horse and camel, and of extinct species of ox and lion.
In the collection of bird fossils is that of a giant vulture, the largest
bird that ever flew, and a true peacock (Pavo calif orntcus) , found only
in La Brea deposits.
In the Natural History Wing, groups of stuffed animals stand in
softly lighted cases against backgrounds reproducing the flora, topog
raphy, and sky-tints of their native regions. The bison group, and the
water hole group with zebras, giraffes, and many kinds of antelope, are
particularly lifelike.
Other exhibits of note are the dioramas modeled to scale, showing
California scenes from prehistoric times through the Russian, Spanish,
Mexican, and American periods to the present day; the Motion-Picture
Exhibit, which includes costumed models of prominent stars of the
past and present, make-up boxes, props, Klieg lights, old cinema-house
bills, illustrated song slides, and the like ; the Harrison Collection of
the work of contemporary American artists; the Regan Collection of
Rembrandt etchings; the Coronel Collection of early California relics;
the Otis Collection of weapons; and the Oriental Collection.
Egyptian mummies, swords, period furniture, snuffboxes, and models
and specimens of early airplanes, automobiles, bicycles, and wearing
apparel are part of the museum s miscellaneous stock. A Research
Library has nearly 20,000 bound volumes and many thousands of un
bound pamphlets, magazines and newspapers. The Junior Museum, on
a floor below street level with an entrance at the southeast corner of the
building, has models, books, and pictures illustrating history, science,
travel, and art.
119. The LOS ANGELES MEMORIAL COLISEUM (open 6-6) t
at the end of the long mall, was designed by John and Donald Parkin
son. The main entrance is a high, arched peristyle flanked by tall
double arcades and topped by the Olympic Torch, which burned, in the
tradition of the Olympic games, during the two weeks of the Tenth
International Olympiad held in the Coliseum in 1932.
The stadium, with a seating capacity of 105,000, is much larger
than that of the Coliseum in Rome. Notwithstanding the size of the
stadium s crowds, its 108 portals are capable of discharging the entire
attendance within 20 minutes. The coliseum was completed in 1923
after two years of construction, and enlarged to its present size in
preparation for the Olympics. It is used for major football games,
rodeos, track and field meets, pageants, religious ceremonies, and civic
gatherings.
THE SOUTHWEST SECTION 193
1 20. In the southwest corner of the park is the LOS ANGELES
SWIMMING STADIUM (open June to Sept. 9:30-5 weekdays,
7-5 Sun. and holidays; children under 16 years of age 10$, adults 2$^ ,
suits free], a concrete and steel grandstand, seating 5,000 in view of
two pools. One of the pools was designed for the aquatic events of the
Tenth International Olympiad upon suggestions made by the swim
ming-sports leaders of the various participant nations; this pool is ren
dered extremely "fast" by specially designed sidewalls, splash bunkers,
and water-level variations that eliminate ripples and backwash.
PART III
Neighboring Cities
r*f**f*******t
Beverly Hills
Bus Service: Pacific Electric Ry. (2 lines) ; one from Hollywood-land through
Beverly Hills to Westwood, with branch line from Beverly Hills Hotel to
Wilshire Blvd. and Camden Dr.; one from Pershing Sq., Los Angeles via
Beverly Blvd., Santa Monica Blvd., Canyon Dr., and Sunset Blvd. to Cas-
tellammare Beach. Los Angeles Motor Coach Co. (bus No. 82) from Pershing
Sq. to Wilshire Blvd. and Beverly Dr.; transfer privileges to No. 88, N. via
Beverly Dr. to Santa Monica Blvd., thence S. to Wilshire Blvd., connecting
with bus No. 82 to Los Angeles. Fares 6$ in Beverly Hills; 15^ to Los Angeles.
Streetcars: Pacific Electric Ry. (2 lines), both from Subway Terminal Bldg.,
Los Angeles; one through Beverly Hills via Hollywood Junction; one via
S. Hill St. and Vineyard. Fares 6 in Beverly Hills; 15^ to Los Angeles.
Taxicabs: Yellow and Red Top stands at Pacific Electric Ry. Station. Fare
20^ first YA, mile, io# each l / 2 mile thereafter.
Information Bureaus: Chamber of Commerce, room 210, 9437 Santa Monica
Blvd.; Automobile Club of Southern California, 9344 Wilshire Blvd.
Street Numbers: Numbers N. and S. begin at Wilshire Blvd.; numbers W.
on the major thoroughfares begin at San Vicente Blvd. and are continuation
of Los Angeles numbers on same streets (with minor exceptions).
Traffic Regulations: Speed limit 15 m. on curves, passing schools, and at
obstructed grade crossings; 20 m. in business district; 25 m. in residential
district; 45 m. elsewhere. Parking in business district limited to 45 minutes
between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. except Sundays and legal holidays.
Hotels, Apartment Houses: Two internationally known hotels, the Beverly-
Wilshire, 9514 Wilshire Blvd., and the Beverly Hills, 1201 Sunset Blvd.; a
few others at average rates. Numerous furnished and unfurnished apart
ments, with greater number of furnished apartments nearer Wilshire Blvd.
Rentals vary with the accommodations offered. Higher-priced units in rental
area W. of Beverly Dr.
Auto and Trailer Camps: Well-appointed camps on outskirts of the com
munity.
Radio Stations: KMPC (710 kc), 9631 Wilshire Blvd.
Churches: All Saints Episcopal, 504 N. Camden Dr.; Beverly Hills Com
munity Presbyterian, 501 N. Rodeo Dr.; Church of the Good Shepherd, Catholic,
Santa Monica Blvd. and Bedford Dr.; First Church of Christ, Scientist, near
Charleville Blvd. and Rexford Dr.; Beverly Vista Community, Gregory Way
and Elm Dr.
Motion-Picture Houses: Beverly Hills (Warner Bros.), 9404 Wilshire Blvd.;
Beverly, 206 N. Beverly Dr.; Elite, 9036 Wilshire Blvd.; Regina, 8556 Wil
shire Blvd.; Wilshire, 8440 Wilshire Blvd.
Parks and Playgrounds: Roxbury, Olympic Blvd. and Roxbury Dr.; La
Cienega, Gregory Way and La Cienega Blvd.; Coldwater Canyon Park,
Beverly Dr. and Coldwater Canyon Rd. ; Sunset, Beverly and Canyon Drs. ;
Reservoir, Beverly Dr. and Coldwater Canyon Alley; Beverly Gardens is a
197
ig8 LOS ANGELES
2-mile parkway, the SW. end of which is marked by an electric fountain,
at Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvds.
Sports: Tennis courts at La Cienega and Roxbury Parks; swimming pool in
La Cienega Park; eight golf courses within easy reach. Miles of bridle paths
in and near Beverly Hills; information and mounts, riding academy at
101 N. San Vicente Blvd.
BEVERLY HILLS (325 alt., 26,823 Pop-)> a quiet and spotless city,
the Gold Coast of the cinema world, is an independent municipality
less than five square miles in extent. It lies eight miles west of Los
Angeles, into which it fits like a jagged piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Here
lawns are required by law; "For Sale" signs must be no more than
one foot square, and only one to a lot; none of the 28,000 uniformly-
planted pines, acacias, blue-flowering jacarandas, feathery pepper or
scarlet-flowering eucalyptus trees that line the thoroughfares can be
removed without the consent of 51 per cent of the landowners affected,
and then only with a guarantee that they will be replaced by trees of
equal age; strict zoning laws forbid business buildings north of Santa
Monica Boulevard, which slants southwest across the community; shops
are tolerated on few streets outside a small triangle at the junction
of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards.
For two miles along the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard
runs Beverly Gardens, opposite which, at Crescent Drive, is the impos
ing City Hall, Spanish Renaissance in design, set in landscaped grounds.
South of the parkway, on the level coastal plain, are pleasant streets
bordered with attractive and less elaborate houses, although the cost of
many ran to five figures. From the other side of the gardens, gently
curving streets extend, tendril-like, into cool shaded canyons and up
the steep pitches of the Santa Monica foothills, a section of large and
often lavish estates, the homes of movie stars whose meteoric careers are
currently in the ascendant or at the zenith.
Although Beverly Hills is young, its site was occupied more than a
century ago by the 4,5OO-acre Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas (gathering
of the waters), also known as the Rancho San Antonio. In the early
i83o s, Senora Rita Villa, nee Valdez, granddaughter of one of the
first settlers of Los Angeles and widow of another, maintained a home
here and another in Los Angeles. In 1854 tne rancho was sold to two
Americans, Benjamin (Don Benito) Wilson and Major Henry Han
cock, of the adjacent Rancho La Brea. Attempts were made to found
a settlement in 1869, and again during the boom of the late i88o s.
Both failed, but in 1906, with the organization of the Rodeo Land and
Water Company by Burton E. Green, of Beverly Farms, Mass., a new
subdivision was laid out on the level ground between Wilshire and
Santa Monica Boulevards and recorded as Beverly; the subdivision of
Beverly Hills was laid out toward the northwest the next year. The
panic of 1907-8 halted development until 1912, when the Beverly Hills
Hotel was erected in the middle of a bean field. Two years later the
population totaled 500, and Beverly Hills was incorporated as a munic
ipality, governed by five nonsalaried councilmen, one of whom acted
BEVERLY HILLS 199
a< m;i\or. The 1920 census revealed only 674 residents, but the move
ment that was to increase the population 2,500 per cent within a dec
ade had already been instituted in 1919 when Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.,
purchased the hilltop site of Pickfair for $35,000. Other celebrities
followed, some to build modest houses, others fired with an ambition
to exceed the "magnificent" and the "stupendous," heaping up gigantic
establishments that have since become "colossal" stones around their
necks. Pickfair has been offered for sale ; William Powell s house, with
its elaborate gadgets, has been sold ; an attempt to auction off John
Burrymore s hilltop mansion brought no acceptable bid. "The Chinese
Tenement," as Barrymore scornfully refers to it, cost the actor $448,-
ooo. "Frankly," he said, "it was a kind of nightmare, but it might
appeal to somebody maybe some actor . . . Yep, three pools. Incred
ible, isn t it? In one of them I used to keep rainbow trout . . ."
The real estate boom of the early 1920*5 inspired considerable bustle
and excitement, stimulated in part by the late Will Rogers, who was
the city s honorary mayor before his death in 1935, and whose daily
syndicated column usually carried a "Beverly Hills" date line. "Lots
are sold so quickly and often here," he wrote in August 1923, "that
they are put through escrow made out to the twelfth owner. They
couldn t possibly make a separate deed for each purchaser; besides he
wouldn t have time to read [it] in the ten minutes time he owned the
lot. Your having no money don t worry the agents, if they can just get
a couple of dollars down, or an old overcoat or shotgun, or anything
to act as down payment. Second-hand Fords are considered A-i col
lateral."
More than 150 film stars now live in Beverly Hills, as well as such
notables as Sigmund Romberg, composer; Freeman Gosden and Charles
Correll, the Amos n Andy of radio; Grantland Rice, sports writer;
Elsie Janis, former musical comedy star; and motor magnates E. L.
Cord and C. W. Nash. Some reside south of Sunset Boulevard, be
tween Hillcrest and Walden Drives, but the majority have their houses
on Lexington Road, Coldwater Canyon Drive, Tower Road, and Cove
Way. For the most part, the mansions are pleasantly situated and
unobtrusive, although a few assault the senses and every criterion of
good design. None carry neon lights emblazoning the name and fame
of the occupants; rather, the eager tourist, usually feminine, chiefly
young or of uncertain age, confesses sore disappointment to discover
that the lives of those so glamorously portrayed in movie magazines
and gossip columns are screened from view by high walls and hedges.
Sightseers catch no glimpse of onyx swimming pools, sunken gardens,
private golf courses, Borzoi hounds, and elegant tea and cocktail parties
on terraced lawns, but they never tire of hearing the guides on the
rubberneck wagons shout: "On the right, the home of Jack Benny and
Mary Livingstone; also on the right, Eddie Cantor . . . Left, Charlie
Chaplin . . . Left, Fred Astaire . . . The vast estate of Harold
Lloyd, with its waterfall . . . Right . . . Left . . . Right."
The city continues to grow rapidly. Stars of screen, radio, and
2OO LOS ANGELES
stage come in increasing numbers, with financiers and industrialists in
their wake, to enjoy Beverly Hills studied charm and freedom from
the smoke, clatter, and conflicts of industry. In recent years many
business and professional people of comparatively modest means have
come from Los Angeles and other communities to build homes here,
with the result that the construction industry has been greatly stimu
lated locally and in all surrounding territory, but the predominant
local "industry," and one that employs thousands, remains that of
servicing the manifold, sometimes bizarre, and always expensive needs
of those "in the money."
POINTS OF INTEREST
BEVERLY GARDENS is a block-wide parkway extending almost
two miles along the north side of Santa Monica Blvd., from Doheny
Dr. to Wilshire Blvd. A promenade runs the length of the park
under sweeping elms; pergolas, ornamental fountains, flower beds,
attractively planted groups of trees, rose and cacti gardens, and a lily
pond grace the parkway.
1. The ELECTRIC FOUNTAIN, NW. corner Wilshire and Santa
Monica Blvds., can produce more than 60 effects by changes of spray,
stream, and color. A kneeling figure on a square column rising from
the center of the circular reservoir symbolizes an Indian rain prayer;
the frieze around the base pictures incidents in California s early history.
2. The Roman Catholic CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD,
NW corner Santa Monica Blvd. and N. Bedford Dr., Spanish Colonial
in style, with heavy baroque ornamentation, has two massive buttressed
towers, with low, black-roofed domes above the open arches of the bel
fries. Reaching half the height of the facade is an atrium, with three
arched doorways, extending from tower to tower. The reinforced
concrete building is covered with ivory-tinted stucco. The ivory walls,
columns, and ceiling of the interior provide a striking setting for the
windows of richly-hued Munich glass that lend the church much of its
distinction. The sanctuary extends the full width of the nave, from
which it is divided by a marble rail. Shrines with colored figures of
the Virgin, angels and various saints, holding staffs that flower into
clusters of candles, flank the main altar. Pulpit and altar are of white
Italian marble.
The rectory is linked to the church by an arcade, with a screen of
similarly designed arches enclosing the formal gardens that surround
the rectory.
3. ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NW. corner Santa
Monica Blvd. and N. Camden Dr., flanked by rose gardens in an ex
panse of lawn, authentically reproduces the design of the Christian
basilicas of ancient Rome. Constructed of concrete, with walls two
feet thick, the church has a rough-surfaced facade unadorned except
for a line of red tile edging the low-pitched gable. Across the facade,
pierced by a small stained-glass rose window, extends a shed-like
BEVERLY HILLS 2OI
atrium, with a tile roof sloping streetward. Leather-covered doors,
studded with brass nails, open directly into the plain and simple nave;
the brown, hand-hewn timbers of the roof are exposed. Red tiles pave
both nave and sanctuary; in the semi-circular apse at the rear of the
church, the altar is a flash of gold.
The CIVIC CENTER is developing between Santa Monica Boule
vard, Rexford and Crescent Drives.
4. The NEW POST OFFICE, junction N. Crescent Dr. and Santa
Monica Blvd., is a California-Mediterranean structure of brick and
stone with red-tile roof; the two-story central unit is flanked with one-
story wings at either side.
5. The CITY HALL, opposite the Post Office, dominates the Civic
Center. Spanish Renaissance in style, it was designed by William J.
Gage and built in 1932. From its long, balanced three-story base,
a campanile rises eight stories to a finial and small gold cupola, topped
with a colorful mosaic hemisphere. From the four corners of the main
building project elongated wings one story in front, two stories in
the rear with ornate window and cornice embellishments. From
the Crescent Drive side a wide stairway and promenade leads between
the wings through a forecourt to the classical main entrance. The
building houses the municipal administrative offices, city jail, public
library, and emergency hospital.
6. The FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, 142 S.
Rexford Dr., together with its Sunday School buildings, encloses three
sides of an open court paved with square red tiles. The buildings have
simple roof lines broken at the center by a small lantern, or fleche.
The church has a high pediment supported by slender Corinthian
columns; a commodious foyer leads into the i,25oseat auditorium,
with stately windows of white cathedral glass. The pews are luxuri
ous opera chairs, upholstered in soft blue-gray plush. The auditorium
is air-conditioned and lighted indirectly by hanging fixtures in delicate
patterns of blue and gold.
7. The BEVERLY-WILSHIRE HOTEL, 95 H Wilshirc Blvd., has
been a rendezvous for wealthy tourists and cinema headliners since its
opening in 1928. The U-shaped building, of concrete, with veneer of
tan pressed brick, has a flat roof with a wide overhang; the facade
reflects strong Italian influence in the arched openings of the first and
top floors and in its low-relief baroque ornamentation.
8. The TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX STUDIOS, 10201 W.
Pico Blvd., is in 1939 the largest motion-picture studio in the country.
Ivy-covered stucco walls surround the 225-acre lot, where are scattered
20 immense sound stages, one with a plant for freezing ice for winter
scenes. There are also wardrobe buildings, containing habiliment for
anything from a Roman tyrant to a Salvation Army general ; scattered
buildings, housing thousands of props; a building that once served as
Tom Mix stables but is now the Arsenal and Sound Effects Depart
ment, with equipment for every conceivable noise from a mouse squeak
to a volcano rumble; a Norman chateau for writers; and a Hall of
\
\
\
\
POINTS (
1. Electric Fountain 5. City Hall
2. Church of the Good Shepherd 6. First Church of Christ, Scien-
3. All Saints Episcopal Church tist
4. New Post Office 7. Beverly-Wilshire Hotel
BEVERLY HILLS
AND
VICINITY
HTEREST
8. 2Oth Century-Fox Studios n. I nhrrsity of California at
9. Veterans Administration Fa- Los Angeles
cility 12. Municipal Park
10. Tropical Ice Gardens 13. Beverly Hills Hotel
2O4 LOS ANGELES
Music with fountained patio, where many successful musical films have
been made.
9. The VETERANS ADMINISTRATION FACILITY OF LOS
ANGELES (visited 1:30-3 daily; tubercular wards 3-4:30 daily; psy
chopathic wards Sun., Tues., and Thurs. 2-4), Sepulveda and Wilshire
Blvds., comprises approximately 175 buildings on 700 acres of land,
most of them landscaped with lawns, trees, and flower beds. The in
stitution, locally called the Sawtelle Soldiers Home, provides free
hospitalization for veterans of the Civil, Spanish-American, and World
Wars. The largest (1939) soldiers home in the country, it has facili
ties to care for 7,700 veterans who are disabled or in need of medical
care.
Westwood Boulevard, lined with tall palms and green parkways, is
the main thoroughfare of WESTWOOD VILLAGE (388 alt.), a
lO-year-old town within the corporate limits of Los Angeles. It is a
community resplendent with high-towered filling stations, new, dazzling-
white shops under red-tile roofs, and many patios with fountains. It is
a shopping center for the very prosperous Westwood and Bel-Air
residential districts to the north, and for the students of the University
of California at Los Angeles.
10. The TROPICAL ICE GARDENS (skating, daytime 40$, eve
ning 55$, including skates}, just south of the U.C.L.A. campus, at the
end of Weyburn Ave., have an outdoor ice floor the year round. A
gallery (occasional exhibitions; adm. 50$ to $2) seating 8,000, and a
synthetic Alpine village surround the rink.
I L The UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES,
405 Hilgard Ave., stands in extensive lawns crowning a broad terraced
elevation overlooking rolling valleys, plains, and low hills. Behind,
the blue-misted Santa Monica Mountains form an irregular sky line.
The buildings erected since 1929 stand on grounds thicky bordered
with iceplant, but lack the ivy and venerable shade trees of older insti
tutions of learning; the grouping of these buildings has the efficiency
and orderliness possible only when a full grown institution is trans
planted to a new site.
An integral part of the University of California, the University of
California at Los Angeles grew out of the Los Angeles State Normal
School, founded in 1881. In 1919 that institution became the Univer
sity of California, Southern Branch; the present name was adopted in
1927. Two years later it was moved to this campus, which had been
presented by the cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice, and
Beverly Hills.
With a faculty of more than 300, the university offers instruction in
the humanities, the sciences, business administration, education, and
agriculture to more than 7,000 graduate and undergraduate students.
The four main buildings stand on a low hilltop reached from the
Hilgard Ave. entrance by way of a monumental bridge. These central
buildings, in the walls and roofs of which is much terra cotta, brick, and
tile, are four stories high and display the usual eclectic southern Cali-
BEVERLY HILLS 2O5
fornia motifs and architectural features in their decoration. Roman
esque and Italian Renaissance influences are particularly apparent. On
the north side of an esplanade is JOSIAH ROYCE HALL, housing the
auditorium, classrooms, and faculty offices, and named for the philos
opher who was one of the University of California s notable graduates.
With tiled gabled roofs and two massive towers flanking the triple-
arched entrance, the facade of the hall to some extent resembles that
of the Church of San Ambrogia in Milan. On the south side, across
the walk-bordered green, is the vast LIBRARY, housing 322,000 vol
umes. The central unit of the large structure, which has wings and
rear extensions, is crowned with an octagonal superstructure with a
set-back. Royce Hall was designed by Allison and Allison, the Library
by George W. Kelham. Simpler in detail and treatment are the build
ings grouped east and south of Royce Hall and the Library Building:
the Chemistry-Geology, the Physics-Biology, the Administration, and
Education buildings. At the west end of the esplanade, a broad low
brick stairway with terra-cotta balustrades descends to the Men s and
Women s Gymnasiums, and their swimming pools. Set apart from the
main group, southwest of the Education Building is KERCKHOFF HALL,
social center for students and faculty, where the traditional Tudor
University note is introduced with a graceful turreted tower and leaded
windows. Overlooking the campus from the north is the President s
residence. Near the south entrance on Westwood Blvd. is the ME
CHANIC ARTS BUILDING and shops.
12. The MUNICIPAL PARK, Sunset Blvd. and Beverly and Canon
Drs., has wide and carefully kept lawns, stately palms, and a central
fountain that effectively camouflage the great 8,ooo,OOO-gallon water
tank beneath, the city s reservoir.
13. The BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL, 1201 Sunset Blvd., set back
on a gentle hillside on 10 acres of ornamental shrubbery, lofty fan
palms, and spreading date trees, is a diffuse, four-story concrete and
stucco structure, with tile roofs and arched entrances reminiscent of the
early California missions. Windows are grouped in twos and threes ;
a spacious second-story balcony overlooks the swimming pool ; 20 bun
galows are scattered about the grounds.
Glendale
Railroad Stations: Southern Pacific R.R., Cerritos and Railroad Aves. ; Union
Pacific R.R., 730 E. Lexington Dr.; Pacific Electric Ry., 106 N. Brand Blvd.
Bus Stations: Motor Transit Lines, 102^ S. Glendale Ave. ; Burlington Trail-
ways, 213 E. Broadway; Greyhound and Union Pacific Stages, 202 S. Brand
Blvd.
Bus Service: Pasadena-Ocean Park Line to Pasadena, Hollywood, and beaches;
Motor Transit Co. to Los Angeles (branch line to Verdugo City) ; Pacific
Electric Motor Coaches, local and interurban (Los Angeles-Burbank) service,
local fare 5^ and 10^, Los Angeles 15^, Burbank 10^.
Streetcars: Pacific Electric Glendale Line, N. on Brand Blvd. to Mountain
St.; Burbank Line, N. on Brand Blvd. to Glenoaks Blvd., thence W. to terminus
in Burbank; Pacific Electric local line, E. on Broadway from Brand Blvd. to
Chevy Chase Dr. (fare 6^ within city limits).
Airport: Grand Central Air Terminal, 1224 Air Way, 2 m. (NE) from
center of Glendale, for Pan-American Airways, Palm Springs Air Line, and
Mexican Aviation Co. Planes for charter.
Taxicabs: Yellow Cab Co. and Glendale Taxi Service; meter rates.
Traffic Regulations: Uniform traffic ordinances for California cities, as con
tained in booklet compiled by Automobile Club of Southern California; watch
signs for parking rules and one-way streets.
Information Bureaus: Hotel Informant, 709 E. Broadway; Automobile Club of
Southern California, 600 S. Central Ave.; Glendale Chamber of Commerce,
116 E. Wilson Ave.; railroad and bus stations.
Street Numbers: Numbered E. and W. from Brand Blvd., and N. and S. from
Broadway, 100 to the block.
Accommodations: n hotels near Brand and Colorado Blvd.; rates $i-$3-5o
per day; 140 apartment houses, 100 bungalow courts.
Auto and Trailer Camps: Auto camp at San Fernando Rd. and Ivy Ave.
Trailer camps at Riverside Dr. and San Fernando Rd., at Riverside Dr. and
Magnolia Ave.
Radio Station: KIEV, Hotel Glendale, 701 E. Broadway.
Theatres: 8 motion-picture theatres. Occasional performances in Glendale
High School Auditorium by Glendale Community Players.
Churches: 42 churches and religious groups, representing most denominations.
Schools: More than 40 public and private institutions.
Newspapers: News-Press, daily, eves, (except Sun.) ; Star, twice-weekly,
Thurs. and Sun.
Parks, Playgrounds, Picnic Grounds: Fremont Park, Patterson and Kenil-
worth Aves.; Glenoaks Park, E. Glenoaks Blvd. and Garden PI.; Maple
206
GLENDALE 2O7
Park, 813 E. Maple and Cedar St>.; Xiblcy Park, 1300 E. Mountain St.;
Raymond Park, 1400 block Raymond Ave.; San Rafael Park, 1340 Dorothy
Dr.; Sparr Heights Park, 331 Downing Ave.; Verdugo Recreation Center,
La Canada Blvd. near Rossmoyne ; Wilson Recreation Center, 200 block on
N. Kenwood St.
Golf: Chevy Chase Club, 3067 Chevy Chase Dr., 9 holes (green fees daily,
weekly, or monthly). Oakmont Country Club, 3005 Country Club Dr., 18
holes; restricted to members and guests.
Tennis: Fremont, Glenoaks, Maple, Nibley, and Raymond Parks.
Swimming: Municipal plunges in Fremont Park and at Verdugo Recreation
Center.
Annual Events: Easter Sunrise Service, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, 1712
S. Glendale Ave. Living Christmas Tree Contest. (Residents vie with each
other in decorating living trees in their yards.)
GLENDALE (650 alt., 82,582 pop.), encircled by wooded hills and
blue-veiled mountains in the narrow southeastern tip of the San Fer
nando Valley, is an attractive residential city of frame bungalows and
white or pastel-tinted stucco houses with gayly colored roofs, shutters,
and awnings, set off by green lawns and bright gardens. Golden-
tasseled acacia, scarlet-hung pepper, eucalyptus, and palm trees border
many of the city s streets, and thoroughfares frequently present a vista
of green foothills or the Verdugo Mountains, purple in the distance.
Curving roads climb gentle slopes to the newer residential section in the
hills; higher on the hillsides are large mansions, and several health
resorts and sanitariums.
Nine main boulevards intersect the city and connect with trans
continental highways. Modern shops line the business center at Brand
Boulevard and Broadway; most of the buildings are of one or two
stories, but a scattering of seven- and eight-story hotels, clubs, and banks
offer a faint suggestion of a sky line.
Cheap land and power, proximity to oil and gas, extensive local
markets and convenient transportation to larger markets, an open-shop
labor policy and an equable climate have been factors in the city s rise
since 1910 from a drowsy hamlet to a flourishing industrial city, third
in rank among the 44 cities of Los Angeles County. More than 200
plants manufacture such varied products as asbestos roofing, cement,
sprinklers, refrigerators, light posts, sheet metal, motors, incinerators,
automobile accessories, mattresses, beverages, cereals, tents and awn
ings, musical instruments, and jewelry ; most of the kiln products used
in downtown Los Angeles building construction are from Glendale.
Although superseded recently as a transcontinental and international
terminus by the Union Air Terminal at Burbank (see Tour 7), Glen-
dale s airport remains one of the finest in the West.
The site of Glendale and several adjoining communities was in
cluded in the huge 3O,ooo-acre triangular domain extending from the
Arroyo Seco to the lands of the Mission San Fernando, the first and
largest land grant in the frontier territory of Alta California, which
was given in 1794 to Corporal Jose Maria Verdugo, captain of the
2O8 LOS ANGELES
guard at San Gabriel Mission. Here on the Rancho San Rafael, as it
was named, Don Jose and his family lived in frontier fashion, turning
over the soil with wooden plows, driving cattle over the threshing floor
to trample out the grain, throwing grain and chaff against the wind to
winnow it. The rancho sheltered priests and soldiers during the
troubled years in which Alta California passed from Spain to Mexico
and then from Mexico to the United States. Under an oak on the
rancho the Cahuenga Capitulation Treaty was signed by General
Andres Pico and Lieutenant Colonel John C. Fremont on January 12,
1847-
On Don Jose s death in 1831, the ranch passed to his children,
Julio and Catalina. As master of the rancho, Julio continued to live
the pleasant life of a caballero ; the elite of the countryside were enter
tained with traditional display and hospitality at Verdugo fandangos
and rodeos. Catalina, a blind spinster, made her home with one or an
other of Julio s many sons, until her favorite nephew Teodoro built for
her when she was 60, La Casa de Catalina Verdugo. Division of the
property among heirs and relatives, the sale of large parts of the
rancho to pay debts, and litigation in the 1 870*5 left the Verdugo
family with only 5,000 acres.
Thirteen American families had established homes among fruit
orchards and orange groves here by 1883, when the Southern Pacific
Railroad was extended through the rancho. Lands were pooled by the
farmers, a townsite was laid out, and the community named Glendale
for a painting so entitled by an artist whose name has been lost to
posterity. Controversy over the name led to the building of another
community called Tropico, absorbed by Glendale in 1917. During
the booming i88o s a narrow gauge steam line linked the village with
Los Angeles; a large hotel was erected, and the Glendale Encinal was
established by Arthur and Walter Wheeler, enterprising journalists,
who made the rounds of adjacent communities twice weekly astride
broncos or in mule-drawn carts.
At the termination of the boom in 1888 the settlement had a
population of 300, three short blocks of cement sidewalk, the empty
Glendale Hotel, and no gas, electricity, or other facilities. But a
church, livery stable, blacksmith shop, and a meat market remained
to serve the townsfolk.
Renewed cultivation of orchards and farms in the surrounding
countryside, brisk marketing of prunes, peaches, apricots, and straw
berries, helped to revive the dormant hamlet. By 1904, when the
Pacific Electric interurban connection with Los Angeles was com
pleted, the town s population had trebled; commerce had greatly in
creased, and the Glendale Hotel, acquired by L. C. Brand on a
plumber s lien, was leased as a young ladies seminary and renamed St.
Hilda s Hall. The town s population grew from 2,000 in 1906, the
year of its incorporation, to 13,000 in 1920. Farms and orchards gave
way to business and manufacturing. The city manager form of govern
ment was adopted in 1922. The town s own police, fire department,
GLEN DALE 2OQ
public utilities, school system, and recreational institutions were estab
lished.
Today Glendale is a financially sound little city with active civic
and business clubs and ambitious cultural and social societies. The su
burban residential character of the town is still unthreatened by its
expanding industry.
POINTS OF INTEREST
1. The UNITED STATES POST OFFICE AND FEDERAL
BUILDING, 313 E. Broadway, Spanish Renaissance in style, designed
by George M. Lindsey and completed in 1934 has a two-story central
unit and one-story wings surfaced with terra cotta resembling granite.
2. FOREST LAWN MEMORIAL PARK, 1712 Glendale Ave.
(open 8-5], is 220 elaborate and elegantly groomed burial acres dotted
with gleaming white statuary, quaint chapels, ponds with graceful swans
and "pure white ducks," a massive mausoleum, and an inspiring Tower
of Legends enclosing a i65,ooo-gallon water tank. This park was the
inspiration of Hubert C. Eaton, a banker who on New Year s Day,
1917, stood on a height surveying an old country cemetery here he had
just acquired by foreclosure of a mortgage. In the words of the Board
of Trustees, "a vision came to the man of what this tiny God s Acre
might become; and standing there he made a promise to The Infinite."
On returning home he put his promise into words, registering his pro
found conviction that "the cemeteries of today are wrong because they
depict an end, not a beginning," and have consequently become "un
sightly stoneyards full of inartistic symbols and depressing customs,
places that do nothing for humanity save a practical act and that not
well."
Forest Lawn was to correct all this, and it has gone far in its
chosen direction. No "unsightly" tombstones are allowed here, merely
brass plates on the grass, under which lie with others the remains of
Will Rogers and Wallace Reid. Funds were generously invested at
home and abroad in sculptured marble and stained glass. Landscape
architects were given free rein in laying out dells, nooks, fountains,
lanes where "lovers new and old ... [may] stroll and watch the
sunset s glow, planning for the future," and a maze of paved driveways
for more modern Romeos. A "lucky" bride s seat was placed in the
forecourt of a handsome marriage chapel, modern in conveniences, Old
World in atmosphere, where "the only theology is love," a note echoed
from cloistered recesses along both sides of the nave where, above masses
of greenery and bowers of fragrant blooms, caged canaries "trill the
melody of love." The most inspired advertising talent was hired to
proclaim far and wide the revolutionary import of this latest conception
of the traditional Eternity Acres to educate the public at large in the
builder s credo, based on his belief that Christ "smiles and loves you
and me," and to acquaint the world w r ith the artistic, scenic, horticul
tural, and spiritual beauties of Forest Lawn. Mr. Bruce Barton, pub-
2IO LOS ANGELES
lie relations counsel, former Congressman from the "Silk Stocking
District" of New York City, and author of The Man Nobody Knows,
has described the place in a signed, framed, testimonial as "a first
step up toward Heaven," urging all visitors who come here to go home
and establish similar places, for "not until that happens will we be able
to call ourselves a truly Christian nation." Prices for burial here start
as low as $45, which includes perpetual care, although as much as
$100,000 has been spent on a single memorial.
Just within the large wrought-iron entrance gates are (R) the
Administration Building, on the lines of a Tudor manor, with a well-
stocked flower and art shop, and (R) the mortuary. Southeast of the
latter is the LITTLE CHURCH OF THE FLOWERS, a copy of the 14th-
century church in the village of Stoke Poges, England, where Thomas
Gray was inspired to his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" by the
moldy headstones in the weedy burial ground in the shadow of the
church, warning ambition not to mock,
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
All but the weeds and the tombstones have been faithfully reproduced
here, even the ivy-mantled tower, and in the chapel is the old com
munion table from the Stoke Poges Church, together with Mr. Bar
ton s tribute, a carved oak contribution box, and other interesting
features. The TREE OF LIFE WINDOW, in stained glass, is patterned
on a design from an illuminated medieval manuscript.
Eastward on Main Drive is (R) THE FINDING OF MOSES FOUN
TAIN, a reproduction of that by Brazza, in the Pincion Gardens in
Rome; 22 life-size figures constitute the MYSTERY OF LIFE GROUP,
by Ernesto Gazzeri.
Northeast of the Mystery of Life group is the WEE KIRK o THE
HEATHER, of cream-colored sandstone, with slate roof, an exact copy
of the little 14th-century church in Glencairn, Scotland, where bonnie
Annie Laurie worshiped and was buried in the i8th century. The
four double windows in the south wall depict in stained glass her frus
trated love. In the forecourt of the church is the ANNIE LAURIE
WISHING CHAIR, built of stones from the altar in the Glencairn kirk.
"Fairies have blessed these stones," so runs a legend carved in the back
of the chair, and luck will attend the bride and groom who sit here,
hand in hand, on their wedding day. Adjoining the Wee Kirk is
God s Garden, containing a large marble copy of Thorvaldsen s
CHRISTUS.
In the southern part of the grounds rises the tower of the $4,500,-
ooo MAUSOLEUM (adm. to Memorial Terrace by appointment), which
descends the hillside in six great terraces. In the MEMORIAL COURT
OF HONOR, gleaming with rare polished marble and reproductions of
Michelangelo s largest sculptures, is the LAST SUPPER WINDOW, a full-
sized reproduction in stained glass of Da Vinci s fresco in the Santa
Maria delle Grazia convent at Milan. At the entrance to the Me-
N
A
GLENDALE
GRIFFITH
PARK
.FEDERAL WRITERS. PROJECT
LOS ANGELES C*L
POINTS OF INTEREST
1. U. S. Post Office and Federal 4. Curtiss-Wright Technical In-
Building stitute
2. Forest Lawn Memorial Park 5. Casa Adobe de San Rafael
3. Gladding, McBean & Company 6. Glendale Civic Auditorium
Plant 7. Verdugo Adobe
212 LOS ANGELES
morial Terrace is the FOR SUCH is THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN GROUP,
by Vicenzo Jerace.
North of the mausoleum, on Sunrise Slope, is the TEMPLE OF
SANTA SABINA, brought in 1929 from the Basilica of Santa Sabina in
Rome, where it had stood for 400 years, commemorating the martyred
wife of the Roman Emperor, Valentinus, and now a memorial to
E. L. Doheny, Jr. The baldachino, the work of the 16th-century
sculptor, Poscetti, rests on slim marble columns above the sarcophagus-
altar of rare marbles, inlaid with gold mosaic. On a high hill on the
park s northern boundary rises the TOWER OF LEGENDS, an Sy-foot
white concrete shaft, bearing Norse figures in relief. Many memorials
and other statuary are scattered throughout the several sections Slum-
berland, Graceland, Mystery of Life, Vale of Memory, Whispering
Pines, and Babyland, in which are many pieces, including Sleepy Time,
showing two small children asleep in a luxurious tasseled armchair of
marble, with even the buttons of the upholstery faithfully represented,
and the DUCK BABY, "the Spirit of Forest Lawn."
3. The GLADDING, McBEAN AND COMPANY PLANT, 2901
Los Feliz Blvd. (display and stockrooms open 8-5), makes art tiles,
pottery, roofing tiles, glazed tile facings, mosaics, and terra cotta orna
ments, producing 80 per cent of the kiln products used in the larger
downtown buildings of Los Angeles, which uses more terra cotta than
any city in the United States. The products of the company have
strongly influenced the development of the California version of Span
ish mission design. Virtually all raw materials for the kilns come from
deposits in Los Angeles County (see Tour 3) and neighboring regions.
The GRAND CENTRAL AIR TERMINAL, 1224 Air Way,
the Los Angeles terminus of the Pan-American Airways and the Mexi
can Aviation Company, is a United States Customs port of air entry.
The offices and waiting rooms are in the neat tan stucco Terminal
Building, on the Air Way side of the 22O-acre landing field. The
government-approved Grand Central Flying School has headquarters at
the field, around which are several private flying schools and many air
craft shops. The air squad of the Los Angeles County Sheriff s office
is based here ; hangars provide space for private planes.
The "crate" in which Douglas Corrigan "lost his way" on an
announced flight from New York City to California in 1938, landing
next day in Ireland, was pieced together and tuned up on this field.
The field, established in 1928 by a small group of aviation enthusi
asts, passed the following year into the hands of the Curtiss-Wright
Corporation which enlarged and developed it. It has recently been
superseded in large part as a transcontinental and international airport
by the Union Air Terminal at Burbank (see Tour 7).
4. The CURTISS-WRIGHT TECHNICAL INSTITUTE (vis
ited 8-4, free; apply at office in Terminal Bldg.}, which owns and
operates Grand Central Air Terminal, is the largest school for aircraft
mechanics in the country. There are (1939) approximately 500
students.
GLEN DALE 213
BRAND PARK, Mountain St. and Grandview Ave., an irregu
larly-shaped area in the northwest section of Glendale, extends beyond
the city limits and embraces 602 acres of natural woodland of the
Verdugo Hills. The northern part has been closed to the public since
i<H4, when floods washed out the main roads. The 82-acre southern
section, still open but undeveloped, contains the house and library of
Leslie C. Brand, pioneer Glendale subdivider, who willed the park to
the city before his death in 1922. Upon the death of his wife the house
and library will become the property of the city of Glendale.
5. The CASA ADOBE DE SAN RAFAEL (open daily except Mon.,
1-4; grounds open daily 10-4:30}, 1340 Dorothy Dr., is a rambling
whitewashed ranch house, with a splintered wooden porch running
along its wide front and across one end. The house, the oldest in
Glendale, was built in the i86o s by Tomas Sanchez, first sheriff of
Los Angeles County, on a part of the old Rancho San Rafael inherited
by his wife Maria Sepulveda, whom he married at the age of 13 and
w r ho here bore him 21 children. The bare and crudely finished interior
has furniture and other relics of the days when it was built. The
grounds, with their original careless charm, have an air of lazy dilapida
tion saved from bleakness only by a scattering of shrubs and a clump of
giant shaggy eucalyptus trees, grown from seeds presented to Sanchez
by Phineas Banning, developer of Wilmington, who received them
from a missionary. The city of Glendale has built a six-foot white
washed wall around the place to protect it as a public monument.
The VERDUGO RECREATIONAL CENTER, 1401 N. Ver
dugo Rd., is a landscaped y-acre plot in the canyon east of the Verdugo
Hills.
6. The center contains the GLENDALE CIVIC AUDITORIUM
and an outdoor swimming stadium (open 10-10 May i$-Sept. i$;
rates 10^-25$}. The white buildings are of modified Spanish-Colonial
design, with blue-green pattern border and red tile roofs. The audi
torium, seating 2,500 persons, has a "floating" dance floor a floor
with an inner layer of resilient material.
7. The^VERDUGO ADOBE (private], 1517 Camulos Dr., the last
of the five houses put up by the Verdugos on Rancho San Rafael, is a
plain squat dwelling with thick whitewashed walls and a porch along
the front, darkened by a spreading rose vine. Here Dona Catalina
Verdugo, who with her brother Julio inherited the valley in which
Glendale now lies, lived with her favorite nephew Teodoro, one of
Julio s 13 sons.
The Harbor: San Pedro
and IVilmington
Railroad Stations: San Pedro: Pacific Electric Ry. and Southern Pacific R.R.,
5th St. and Harbor Blvd. Terminal Island: Union Pacific and Santa Fe R.R.
Wilmington: Santa Fe Ry., 711 E. Anaheim St.; Southern Pacific R.R., 331
N. Avalon Blvd.; Pacific Electric Ry., 333 N. Avalon Blvd. 2 Pacific Electric
Ry. lines between San Pedro and Los Angeles, one via Dominguez Junction,
the other via Gardena. Harbor Belt Line links all rail and steamship lines.
Bus Stations: San Pedro: Union Bus Depot, 240 W. 6th St., Wilmington:
Los Angels Motor Coach Corp., 104 E. Anaheim St.; Wilmington Bus Co.,
1541 Bay View Ave.
Streetcars: Local service in San Pedro and Wilmington by Pacific Electric
Ry., fare 6^.
Taxis: Several companies; rates under zone system, minimum charge 15^.
Information Bureaus: San Pedro: Chamber of Commerce, 820 S. Commercial
St.; Automobile Club of Southern California, 1432 S. Pacific Ave. Wilmington:
Chamber of Commerce, 327 Avalon Blvd.
Streets and Numbers: San Pedro: from ist St. S. all E.-W. streets are num
bered to Paseo del Mar; N. from ist St. E.-W. streets bear names, as do all
N.-S. streets. The principal N.-S. thoroughfare is Pacific Ave. Chief E.-W.
route is 6th St., from Waterfront to Pacific Ave., then S. to gth S. Wilmington:
Streets laid out in squares except those skirting the water front. E.-W. streets
are lettered from A to R; avenues run N.-S. Exceptions are Pacific Coast
Hwy. and Anaheim St. (E.-W.), and Avalon and Wilmington Blvds. (N.-S.).
Hotels and Apartment Houses: San Pedro: 7 first-class hotels. Wilmington:
4 hotels. Numerous small hotels, tourist camps, apartments, and flats.
Churches: San Pedro: 18 churches and 22 miscellaneous religious groups.
Wilmington: n churches and 8 miscellaneous groups.
Public Schools: San Pedro 13, Wilmington 5.
Motion-Picture Houses: San Pedro 5, Wilmington 2.
Parks, Playgrounds and Picnic Grounds: (See also Los Angeles General
Information.} San Pedro: Alma, 2ist and Meyler Sts, ; Averill, Dodson Ave.
and Averill Dr.; Leland, Upland and Cabrillo Aves. ; Peck, Summerland Ave.
and Patton St.; the Plaza, between Beacon St. and Harbor Blvd., from 6th to
i6th Sts.; Point Fermin, end of Paseo del Mar and Gaffey St. Wilmington:
Banning, bounded by M and O Sts., Eubank and Lakme Aves.
Daily Newspapers: News Pilot (San Pedro) ; Journal and Press (Wilming
ton), daily, except Sun.
Athletic Fields: San Pedro: Navy Field, 34th St. and Pacific Ave., 3 football
fields and 8 baseball diamonds; Sports Field, foot of Pacific Ave., football,
baseball, tennis, and softball ; Daniels Field, i2th and Gaffey Sts., lighted for
night baseball and football.
214
THE HARBOR: SAX PEDRO AND WILMINGTON 215
Boating and Yachting: Anchorages in Watchorn Basin, reached by 22nd and
Miner Sts. (San Pedro). California Yacht Club, Yacht St. at water front
< Wilmington). Other anchorages along West Basin and other points.
Boxing and Wrestling: San Pedro: Army and Navy Y.M.C.A., 921 S. Beacon
St. Wilmington: Wilmington Bowl, 909 Mahar St.
Fishing: San Pedro: Shore fishing from breakwater, fishing barges offshore,
reached by water taxis, rates $i including transportation, tackle and bait;
charter boats, including live bait and tackle, $35 per trip; two 6s-foot
launches, equipped for deep-sea fishing, from Pier 124 (May i to Oct. i), fee
$2; license for game fishing, residents, $2, nonresidents, $3. Wilmington:
live-bait boats from water front for fishing banks off Santa Catalina Island;
barges anchored offshore, reached by water taxis; fishing from piers.
Football: San Pedro: High School field, 1221 S. Gaffey St. Wilmington:
Phineas Banning High School, 1500 N. Avalon Blvd.
Soccer: San Pedro: 1527 Mesa St., Leland and 22nd St., 3333 Kerckhoff Ave.,
1530 W. 7th St. and 1221 S. Gaffey St. Wilmington: 1140 Mahar Ave.
Golf: Royal Palms course (San Pedro), at White Point, 18 holes, open to
public. Fees, 35^ weekdays, 50^ Sun.
Softball: San Pedro: 828 S. Mesa St., 429 Stephen M. White Dr., 1221 S.
Gaffey St. Wilmington: 1331 Eubank St., 1301 Fries Ave., 1196 Gulf St.,
1500 N. Avalon Blvd.
Swimming: Cabrillo Beach (San Pedro), landward end of the breakwater,
surf and still water. Surf bathing (Wilmington).
Tennis: San Pedro: Peck Park, Summerland Ave. and Patton St., 4 courts,
lighted for night playing; Municipal Playground, 828 Mesa St., 2 courts.
Wilmington: 2 courts at 1500 N. Avalon Blvd.
Note: Information concerning Steamship Berths and Traffic Regulations, see
Los Angeles General Information.
Unlike many great world cities, Los Angeles is not situated directly
on either a navigable river or the sea. Its great modern harbor, with
its 25-mile frontage, was created by dredging the mud flats and salt
marshes of San Pedro Bay, 25 miles south of the heart of the city.
Since 1920 the Federal government and the city of Los Angeles have
spent $60,000,000 in deepening channels, building breakwaters, and
making other improvements. Today, the harbor is the Pacific base
of the U.S. Fleet and one of the nation s five great ports, frequented
by thousands of chunky freighters, trim passenger ships, and fishing
vesNi-ls of many kinds. In 1938 some 5,700 large ships tied up at its
piers and wharves to discharge and load cargoes valued at a billion
dollars; oil products and manufactures constituted most of the export
trade; raw and semi-raw materials for use of industry comprised 75
per cent of the imports.
The two harbor communities of SAN PEDRO (90 alt., 46,685
pop.), and WILMINGTON (25 alt., i/;,<^> pop.), originally known
a^ New San Pedro, were independent cities until 1909 when they were
absorbed by Los Angeles, which organized a Harbor District governed
by a board of five commissioners, appointed by the mayor. This board
manages the muncipal port facilities, which comprise 95 per cent of
2 1 6 LOS ANGELES
those in the harbor. On the west the harbor is protected by the San
Pedro Hills and Point Fermin, from which extends a long breakwater,
in two sections, protecting it on the south and east. The opening
between the two sections, marked by the Breakwater Lighthouse, pro
vides passage into the Outer Harbor. Here the U.S. Battle Fleet
(see Long Beach), with tenders and supply, repair, and hospital ships,
rides at anchor for many months of the year. Between San Pedro and
Terminal Island a deep channel leads into the Inner Harbor, where
ships are manoeuvered in the large turning basin and warped into the
slips and docks that, like saw teeth, jut out from the water front at
Wilmington, four miles inland, the port s chief freight and passenger
terminal. On Terminal Island, a man-made improvement, are large
docks, boat-building and repair yards, and colorful Fish Harbor. East
of the island, Cerritos Channel leads to the Inner Harbor of Long
Beach (see Long Beach}.
A bustling port, notwithstanding its somewhat somnolent air, San
Pedro is the older, larger, and more colorful of the two communities.
Along the water front are faded brick buildings of the first decade of
the century; the residential district spreads back up the hills known as
the Palos Verdes (green woods). Stores along the front streets display
nautical gear of every kind denim jackets, duffle bags, sheath knives,
spyglasses, and gargantuan dice. Here are tattoo parlors, "wing-ding
joints," semi-secret gambling dives where sailors challenge fortune at
cards, roulette, fan-tan, and almost any other game. Everywhere are
union halls and posters, for the water front is strongly unionized and
thoroughly conscious of its strength. The numerous bars are dis
tinctive in character and name. In an erstwhile bank old salts, and
young, straddle stools of steel tube before white marble counters as the
"banker" replenishes his stocks from the vaults, where he keeps his
liquid assets, often more negotiable than other kinds of bonded stuff.
The Silver Dollar saloon has murals by a Chinese who, on completing
them, shot himself. Whispering Joe s, Shanghai Red s, and Scuttle
Butt Inn are popular. At Goodfellow s huge Scandinavian seamen
dance solemnly with one another to wheezy tunes played on an
accordion. The maritime workers of San Pedro include Japanese,
Jugoslavs, Czechs, Italians, Portuguese, Mexicans, and Scandinavians;
the last are the largest group, but these grandsons of the men who
sailed the Seven Seas in the days of the old square-riggers have so
intermarried with other groups that racially they are now scarcely dis
tinguishable.
South of the Pacific Electric Line s interurban depot, a low gray
structure with arcades, through which flows a ceaseless tide of eager
tourists and blase wanderers, are fish wharves; beyond are old sun-
blistered, pumpkin-yellow buildings, once a station and wharf, at pres
ent abandoned to two battered South Sea trading schooners. Nearby,
lumberyards occupy a strip of sand known as "Mexican Beach," the
hangout of beachcombers and swimmers. Here is "Mexican Holly
wood," a collection of shacks, periodically the scene of much nocturnal
THE HARBOR: SAN PEDRO AND WILMINGTON 217
revelry, and "Happy Valley," home of seamen between voyages to
distant ports.
San Pedro has long talked of the sea and its lore, and old tars tell
and retell tales of dope-running, rum-running, alien-smuggling, spy
scares, police and gang raids on gambling dens operated on barges
offshore, weird murders on yachts bound for the "isles of somewhere,"
buried treasure, such mysterious vanishings as that of the Belle Isle
off the Galapagos in 1935, and many a shipwreck since the day in 1828
when a "Santa Ana" blew the brig Danube ashore here, the first to be
piled up in the harbor.
Wilmington, an offshoot of San Pedro, has had a less colorful and
more businesslike career. Established to handle heavy freight, it still
serves that function. Ocean-going ships tie up here to discharge and
take on goods and passengers. Around the wharves and piers are streets
lined with shipping offices and warehouses storing goods from all parts
of the world.
The recorded history of the area dates back to 1542, when Cabrillo
sailed his leaky little craft into the harbor, which he named La Bahia de
los Fumos (bay of smokes), for the Indian fires on the slopes of Palos
Verdes. A map maker years later identified it as La Bahia de San
Pedro to commemorate Vizcaino s arrival on November 26, 1602, the
feast day of St. Peter. During the closing years of the i8th century
Spanish rancheros shipped produce from the bay. In 1808 Captain
William Shaler, a fur trader, sailed in with the first Yankee ship, Lelia
Byrd, and although trade with foreigners was forbidden by the au
thorities, Yankee skippers continued to come, for the rancheros and
even the padres were anxious to trade hides and tallow for manufac
tured goods.
A description of the harbor in 1838 has been left us by Richard
Henry Dana in his Two Years Before the Mast: ". . . there was no
sign of a town. What had brought us into such a place \ve could not
conceive . . . we lay exposed to every wind that could blow. 1
learned to my surprise that the desolate looking place was the best
place on the whole coast . . . and about thirty miles in the interior
. . , : was the Pueblo de Los Angeles." San Pedro had developed
somewhat when Major Horace Bell wrote in 1853 that it was a "great
place; it had no streets, for none were necessary. There were two
mud scows, a ship s anchor and a fishing boat . . . broken down Mexi
can carts, a house, a large haystack and a mule corral." When Dana
returned in 1859 he found a wharf, two or three warehouses, and a
stagecoach, which plied daily between the port and the pueblo.
The early development of the harbor was in large part the work
of Phineas Banning, who came to California in 1851 and soon estab-
li-hcd freighting service between San Pedro and the pueblo. To gain
an advantage over his one competitor, he bought part of the old Rancho
San Pedro on the inner bay, closer to Los Angeles, and there built a
wharf and warehouse, founding what was known as New San Pedro
2 I 8 LOS ANGELES
in 1858. A gale hastened its development, for it wrecked Banning s
wharf at San Pedro and he transferred all his activities to the new
port. Every day Banning, wearing red suspenders, labored at the
wharf and his booming voice dispatched an increasing number of carts
and coaches up the dusty road to the pueblo. For a few years New
San Pedro surpassed its parent port both in population and tonnage
handled. During the Civil War the United States Army quartered
troops in the town, and in 1863, when its population of soldiers and
civilians approximated 6,000, the State legislature renamed the town
for Wilmington, Del., Banning s birthplace. In 1868 a railroad was
built to Los Angeles, but the following year the Southern Pacific pur
chased the road and extended it to San Pedro. Coastwise vessels thus
could load from "ship to car," and San Pedro regained its ascendancy,
although the coming of the railroads and the growth of population
brought commerce enough to make both ports prosperous. Wilmington
was incorporated as a city in 1872; San Pedro, in 1888.
The development of tremendous man-made Los Angeles Harbor
from mud flats and salt marshes is a dramatic story. In 1858 small
steamers and sailing vessels from San Francisco and South America
anchored offshore while their cargo was discharged into lighters. Ban
ning dredged the inner harbor, by a crude system of two boats and
rakes, which were dragged along the bottom of the channel, loosening
silt, which the tide carried out to sea. But in spite of this work and
the dredging of the San Pedro main channel to a depth of 16 feet in
1871, the port remained a shallow basin with little protection from
the sea. The Federal government completed a jetty between Terminal
Island (then Rattlesnake Island) and Dead Man s Island in 1893, but
a bitter controversy developed as to whether a harbor should be con
structed here or at Santa Monica (see Pueblo to Metropolis). U.S.
Senator Stephen M. White, "father" of the harbor, overcame opposi
tion in Washington, and the first rock of the new breakwater was
dumped off Point Fermin in 1899. At the turn of the century the port
was handling 200,000 tons a year, a four-fold increase since 1871, and
two railroads had terminals at the harbor. Increased business and
harbor facilities brought the two ports together, and in 1909 they were
annexed by Los Angeles and consolidated as the Harbor District. To
day, Los Angeles is one of our five largest seaports.
During recent years the harbor has been involved in the struggle
along the Pacific between maritime unions and shipowners. A 100-
day strike in 1937 achieved substantial gains for labor and unification
of the unions under the leadership of the militant longshoremen s union,
which led most of the maritime unions into the Congress of Industrial
Organization. Fishermen have likewise unionized themselves both in
the CIO and the American Federation of Labor, and a close bond now
unites fishermen, longshoremen, seamen, marine engineers, bartenders,
and all engaged in wresting a livelihood from their common friend
and enemy, the sea.
THE HARBOR: SAN IM-: D R o AND WILMINGTON 219
POINTS OF INTEREST
SAN
The CIVIC CENTER, Harbor Blvd. and Beacon, 6th and gth
Sts., lies on the west side of the Main Channel. Its buildings are
grouped about the northern end of the tree-studded Plaza, which
extends southward to I3th Street. The Plaza offers a good view of
the i,ooofoot MAIN CHANNEL between San Pedro and Terminal
Island shore lines, which leads from the Outer Harbor to a i,6oo-foot
turning basin bounded by Smith s, Mormon, and Terminal Islands.
At the turning basin the channel branches to the West and East basins
of the Inner Harbor.
1. Dominating the Civic Center, at its northeast corner, is the six-
story, tan-brick BRANCH CITY HALL, 638 S. Beacon St., built in
1928 to house the Harbor Department offices and various branch units
of the Los Angeles municipal government.
2. The new UNITED STATES CUSTOMS HOUSE AND
POST OFFICE, Beacon and 9th Sts., a three-story, reinforced-con-
crete structure completed in 1935, faces the park on the west side.
In the lobby is a 4O-foot mural by Fletcher Martin, depicting the
evolution in the transportation of mail in various parts of the country.
The post office and various Federal bureaus are quartered in this
building.
3. The UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION STATION (open
9-4:30), foot of 22nd St., is a two-story building of gray stucco, with
barred windows and an adjoining "bull pen," through which annually
pass 15,000 aliens, 60 per cent of whom are Orientals.
4. The MARINE EXCHANGE LOOKOUT STATION (not
open), on the roof of the six-story Municipal Warehouse No. I, Pier
No. I, foot of Signal St., is a square glass-enclosed compartment
equipped with a powerful telescope by which ships are identified an
hour before they arrive at Breakwater Light. Flag signals are used
to communicate with ships during the day; a blinker-light system is
employed at night.
5. At the tip of Pier No. I, within full view of Outer Harbor ship
traffic, is the two-story cement building of the PILOT STATION
(not open), headquarters of pilots skilled in navigating the Inner
Harbor.
6. At the U.S. NAVY LANDING, 22nd St. at the head of East
Channel, officers and men from the warships land in gigs and longboats
for shore leave; visitors embark here for the dreadnaughts and cruisers
anchored in the Outer Harbor (Sun. and holidays only, 1-4; transpor
tation free).
The 450-foot U.S. COAST GUARD PIER, foot of Outer St., in
Watchorn Basin, is the headquarters of the local unit of the Coast
Guard, which has a force of 150 officers and men, two 1 65-foot patrol
boats, and five smaller craft; the unit patrols the coast from the Mexi-
22O LOS ANGELES
can border to Point Buchon, north of Santa Barbara. Its gray patrol
boats, Aurora and Hermes, carry three guns each, mounted on the
main deck, are equipped with powerful searchlights and radio trans
mitters, and fly the red-barred Coast Guard flag with its motto, Semper
Paratus (L., always ready). When planes are needed for an emer
gency, such as removing a sick or injured person from a vessel at sea,
a call is made on the air base at San Diego, also part of the southern
California section, for one of its five amphibian planes. Coast Guard
activities here, once chiefly concerned with rum-running, now center
on the preservation of life and property and the enforcement of customs
and navigation laws.
FORT MacARTHUR, LOWER RESERVATION (open, ex
cept during artillery practice), 244 acres set aside in 1916 and named
in honor of General Douglas MacArthur, former military governor
of the Philippine Islands, lies on a bluff overlooking West Channel
and Outer Harbor. Ranged around three sides of the five-acre parade
ground are stucco and frame bungalows occupied by officers of the 63rd
Coast Artillery (anti-aircraft) and the Third Coast Artillery. Bar
racks for enlisted men, the commissary and supply departments, mess
halls and garages are massed along the east side. The garrison ranges
from 700 to 800 officers and men. In the reservation are two 1 4-inch
guns weighing 365 tons each; mounted on railway carriages, they are
21 feet high, 95 feet long, and fire steel i,56o-pound projectiles at a
muzzle velocity of 2,700 feet per second over 30 miles per minute.
POINTS OF INTEREST
San Pedro Wilmington
1. Branch City Hall 12. Old Government Supply
2. U. S. Customs House and Warehouse
Post Office 13. Santa Catalina Island Ter-
3. U. S. Immigration Station minal
4. Marine Exchange Lookout 14. Drum Barracks
Station 15. General Banning House
5. Pilot Station 16. Ford Motor Co. Assembly
6. U. S. Navy Landing Plant
7. Statue of Cabrillo 17. Cerritos Channel Drawbridge
8. Bathhouse Terminal Island
9. Boathouse 18. Southern California Edison
10. Government Lighthouse Co. Steam Plant
11. Los Angeles Shipbuilding and 19. Marine Meteorological Ob-
Drydock Corp. Plant servatory
20. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.
Plant
21. Federal Regional Penitentiary
LOS ANGELES
HARBOR
222 LOS ANGELES
CABRILLO BEACH PARK, foot of Stephen M. White Dr.
(opeti 6 a.m. to midnight), named in honor of Juan Rodriguez Ca
brillo, is a recreational area with beach, park, and playground facili
ties.
7. A nine-foot concrete monolithic STATUE OF CABRILLO is the
central piece of a circular landscaped plaza in the park.
8. A white stucco BATHHOUSE (rates, io-2$$}, is at the right
of the statue. In the seaward chambers of the building is the CABRILLO
BEACH MUSEUM (open 9-5; free), a municipal institution exhibiting
specimens of marine and shore life along the Pacific coast.
9. A stucco BOATHOUSE left of the bathhouse, with a wooden pier
for small craft, maintains boat service to an offshore fishing barge
( rates vary ) .
The U. S. GOVERNMENT BREAKWATER extends in two
detached sections from the tip of the San Pedro headland at Cabrillo
Beach to a point opposite the mouth of the Los Angeles Flood Control
Channel, a distance of almost five miles. The curving n,ooo-foot
section between Cabrillo Beach and Breakwater Light was begun in
1899 and completed in 1912 at a cost of $3,000,000. The second sec
tion, a continuation of the first, cost $5,600,000. Both sections consist
of rock fill almost 200 feet wide at the base, tapering to a width of
20 feet at the top, which stands 14 feet above the sea at low tide. At
the seaward end of the first section is Breakwater Light, built in 1913,
having a 110,000 candlepower beam visible 14 miles.
POINT FERMIN PARK, extending (R) along Paseo del Mar
(driveway along the sea), a 28-acre expanse of tree-shaded lawns on the
rugged bluffs of Point Fermin, has sheltered pergolas, a promenade
along the edge of the palisade, and a picnic ground. The park, ac
quired in 1923, bears the name of Point Fermin, which was so-named
in 1784 for Padre Fermin Francisco Lasuen, who succeeded to the
presidency of the California missions on the death of Padre Junipero
Serra.
10. The old GOVERNMENT LIGHTHOUSE on the point, built
in 1874 an d still in use, throws a 6,000 candlepower beam visible for
1 8 miles.
The i76-acre FORT MacARTHUR UPPER RESERVATION
(not open), on the rolling seaward slopes of the Palos Verdes Hills
behind Paseo del Mar, and Gaffey St., was acquired between 1910 and
1921 as a site for modern fortifications in the harbor defense program.
Within the enclosing wire fence, concealed behind low hills, are mas
sive guns, their number and caliber guarded as military secrets. Along
the Gaffey Street side are barracks, supply houses, and garages.
11. The LOS ANGELES SHIPBUILDING AND DRYDOCK
CORPORATION PLANT (adm. by arrangement), West Basin
north of the San Pedro business district, includes a floating drydock
with a lifting capacity of 12,000 tons, shipyards, wharves for ship re
pair, and facilities for the construction and repair of all types of
vessels.
THE HARBOR: SAX PEDRO AND WILMINGTON 223
// ILMINGTON
12. The OLD GOVERNMENT SUPPLY WAREHOUSE (not
open), Fries Ave. and A St., the oldest building in Wilmington, is a
huge barnlike structure of shiplap construction, held together by square
handmade nails; the roof ridge is topped with three square cupolas.
Built in 1858, when Drum Barracks was still a tent camp, the ware
house was used to store supplies consigned to Army posts.
13. From the huge concrete and corrugated iron SANTA CATA-
LINA ISLAND TERMINAL, foot of Avalon Blvd., ships annually
carry between 500,000 and 650,000 pleasure seekers to Santa Catalina
Island (see Tour 5 A}. The landing for hydroplanes to Santa Cata
lina Island is at the head of Slip 5, west of the ship terminal.
14. At the entrance to DRUM BARRACKS, 1053-55 Gary Ave.
(open by arrangement), a cypress archway is inscribed Officers Quar
ters 1862-68, U.S. Army Supply Depot for Southern California, Ari
zona and New Mexico, U.S. Department of the Southwest." The
white building is covered with vines and surrounded by palms, cypress,
and pepper trees. The main building and two rearward wings contain
14 rooms; those in front have high ceilings in the stately manner of
the i86o s. The barracks, the second oldest building in Wilmington,
was constructed from timbers cut at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
Navy Yard in 1861, shipped around Cape Horn, and raised by army
men in 1862 on a 4O-acre site acquired by the Government from
Phincas Banning for one dollar. In a rear patio, bright with greenery,
is an old ivy-covered well with mossy rope and oaken bucket; the well
has been transformed into a shallow goldfish pond.
The barracks, named for General Richard Colton Drum, whose
son, General Hugh Drum, planned the military fortifications in
Hawaii, were built both as a base for operations against the Indians
and to overawe the Secessionist movement in southern California. Here
was the terminus of the first telegraph in the Southwest, and of the
Government s short-lived camel service (see Tour 2), between the
barracks and Tucson, Arizona. During the early years of the Civil
War, between 200 and 400 soldiers were quartered here. With the
subjugation of the Indians in the late i86o s the barracks were aban
doned and the land returned to Banning. The remaining building is
now a private residence.
BANNING PARK, M and O Sts., Eubank and Lakme Avcs.,
perpetuates the memory of Phineas Banning. The 2O-acre tract, ac
quired in 1927 from the Banning heirs, retains its quiet old-fashioned
charm, with its white picket fence and tree-lined walks.
15. The old GENERAL BANNING HOUSE (not open), in the
park, is a white three-story, i8-room mansion, with a two-story portico.
The mansion, still sturdy and well-preserved, has been a landmark in
the harbor district for more than half a century. To the rear is a
frame stable and carriage house, with a collection of surreys, buggies,
and carriages, and a stagecoach that saw service in Banning s California
224 LOS ANGELES
Stage Company. An old brick reservoir, 50 feet in diameter, west of
the mansion, has been converted into a picnic ground. Used for
storing water in the Spanish rancho days, its circular brick wall has
been fitted with windows and doors, and the interior, open to the
sky, has a pergola supporting bougainvillaea and other vines. A stream
meanders through the park, widening at places into small lagoons. On
the playground to the east are softball, tennis, basketball, and horseshoe
courts, a gymnasium, a children s playfield, and an auditorium with a
dance floor.
The derricks of the WILMINGTON OIL FIELD, scattered
throughout the Wilmington residential district from O Street on the
north to Fries Avenue on the west, become a veritable forest of rigs
on either side of Henry Ford Avenue, south of Anaheim Street. In
July 1938 the field had 483 producing wells, with a combined yield of
95,000 barrels per day. The discovery well was spudded in April 26,
1936.
1 6. The FORD MOTOR COMPANY ASSEMBLY PLANT
(open by arrangement}, 700 Henry Ford Ave., lies on reclaimed marsh
land athwart the Los Angeles-Long Beach boundary line, and assembles
automobiles and manufactures parts. At capacity production the plant
assembles 400 cars daily and employs 2,500 men.
17. The 270-foot CERRITOS CHANNEL DRAWBRIDGE, of
the counterpoised or bascule type, foot of Henry Ford Avenue, is the
only bridge to Terminal Island.
TERMINAL ISLAND, reached also by ferries from San Pedro,
foot of Terminal Way ($$; 25$ per car, 5$ per passenger) , is largely
man-made, representing an investment of $12,000,000. Six miles long,
from one-half to three-quarters of a mile wide, the island is lined along
the Inner Harbor and part of the Outer Harbor shore with docks,
wharves, slips, factories, oil plants, a Federal prison, and offices. Its
western two-thirds lie in Los Angeles; the eastern third, in Long
Beach.
1 8. The SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON COMPANY
STEAM PLANT (open by arrangement weekdays 8-3), on a 43-
acre tract at the east end of Terminal Island, consists of three white
concrete buildings with slender concrete stacks, the highest rising
262 feet. Gigantic boilers burning natural gas piped from the Kettle-
man Hills 215 miles distant convert 20 tons of water into steam
every minute. The towers carrying the high voltage cables across
Cerritos Channel are 310 feet high, overtopping all structures in the
harbor.
The new U.S. FLEET AIR BASE (adm. by arrangement), Sea
side Avenue to the edge of the Outer Harbor, includes a concrete sea
plane haul-out ramp, planes, a landing and tender wharf, a dredged
seaplane anchorage protected by an i,8oo-foot rock jetty, two runways
for land planes, and a corrugated iron hangar, the first of several to be
built. There are also men s dormitories, mess halls, officers quarters,
quartermaster and administration buildings.
THE HARBOR: SAN PEDRO AND WILMINGTON 225
19. The MARINE METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORY
(not open), at the E. end of Cannery St., operated jointly by the Los
Angeles Harbor Department and the California Institute of Tech
nology (see Pasadena) on a 24-hour schedule, issues storm warnings
and weather data to mariners. Through its associate staff of students
and scientists from the California Institute of Technology, it conducts
research in meteorology, aerology, climatology, oceanography, modern
weather forecasting, and fog studies. The U.S. Navy uses its findings
in making weather maps for use of airplane pilots.
FISH HARBOR, an artificial inlet on the south side of Terminal
Island, protected by inner and outer moles, is the center of Los Angeles
fishing and canning industry yielding $20,000,000 of products annu
ally. Three sides of the little harbor s quadrangular shore are crowded
with canneries, boatyards, fertilizer plants, gasoline filling stations for
tuna clippers, and other establishments auxiliary to fishing and canning.
The annual pack is valued at $15,000,000; such by-products as fish oil
and meal, fertilizer, and pet foods add an additional $5,000,000.
Fish Harbor is the home port of 1,200 fishing boats. Approxi
mately 300 are operated by Japanese, and the remainder by Slavonians,
Italians, Portuguese, Norwegians, and Americans. Fleets of Monterey
trawlers leave daily and return at dusk with the day s catch. The tuna
clippers, equipped with deep wells, live-bait tanks, and Diesel engines,
go as far afield as the South Seas.
Ten packing plants, with approximately 3,000 employees, operate
in the harbor district. Tuna, albacore, yellowfin, bluefin, skipjack, sar
dines, mackerel, and other fish are tossed into traveling baskets, which
dump them on conveyor belts leading into the canneries. Men of many
nations carry on the work in hip boots, sweaters, and knitted caps.
Slavonians, who represent about one-third of the fishermen, live
mainly in San Pedro. The Japanese, Italians, Portuguese, and Fili
pinos, numbering some 2,000, have gathered in a colony of their own
on the north shore of Fish Harbor immediately behind the wharves
and extending the width of the basin and north from Wharf Street
to Terminal Way. The section is criss-crossed with narrow streets
bearing such names as Barracuda, Tuna, Shrimp, Bass, and Sardine.
On them is heard a babble of many tongues, but seldom English. In
the yards of the frame cottages and along the water front, men,
women, and sometimes children squat mending fish nets, some of which
are 3,000 feet long and valued at $5,000.
The Japanese population numbers approximately 600 fishermen,
150 merchants, about 500 women, and an equal number of children.
It forms a closely-knit colony, having its own Fishermen s Association.
20. The 38-acre BETHLEHEM SHIPBUILDING CORPORA
TION PLANT (open by arrangement), 905 S. Seaside Ave., is
equipped to recondition and repair all sizes and types of ships. Its
floating drydock, with a lifting capacity of 15,000 tons, is the largest in
southern California.
21. The new FEDERAL REGIONAL PENITENTIARY (adm.
226 LOS ANGELES
by arrangement), the Government s newest West Coast prison for
short-term offenders, occupies the seaward side of the Terminal Island
section known as Reservation Point. Completed in May 1938, the
$1,380,000 institution is of reinforced concrete, with three cell blocks
and nine dormitories, providing quarters for 600 male and 24 female
prisoners. The cell blocks, dormitories, machine shops, mess hall, quar
antine and administration building, and auditorium surround a quad
rangular exercise yard.
X\XX\NXX\XX\VXX\\\NNXX\XXX>XVXNX\XXXXXXXVXXXNXXX^rXXXXXXXXXXXXXX^X
Industry and Commerce
xs^^^^
Burton O. Burt
UNLOADING TUNA FISH, FISH HARBOR, TERMINAL ISLAND
LOADING SHIP, TERMINAL ISLAND
Burton O. Burt
GRAIN ELEVATOR
Bret Wcston
Bret Weston
NATURAL GAS TANKS
is i rti
/-. Jr. Carter
OIL FIELDS, MONTEBELLO
AIRVIEW OF INDUSTRIAL SECTION, LOS ANGELES
Spensc Air Photos
WINE STORAGE VATS
Los Angeles County Chamber of Commerce
WINE EXPERTS TASTE AND CLASSIFY CALIFORNIA VINTAGES
ArtStreib
LEMON SIZING MACHINE
I
Jk
IN A WALNUT PACKING PLANT
California Fruit Growers E
n
ir
n
\.
*
wf
*
\
Studebaker-Pacific Corporation
BODY ASSEMBLY LINE, AUTOMOBILE FACTORY
Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc.
ASSEMBLY ROOM, AIRCRAFT FACTOR
* l
K*
Hollywood
Bus Stations: Union Bus Terminal, 1629 N. Cahuenga Blvd., for Greyhound
Lines, Inland Stages, Pacific Electric Ry. Motor Coach, Pasadena-Ocean Park
Stage Line, and busses for Universal City, Warner Bros. -First National Studio,
and Burbank; 1646 N. Cahuenga Blvd. for Union Pacific busses to San Fran
cisco; 1735 N. Cahuenga Blvd. for National Trailways, Santa Fe Trailways,
and Burlington Trailways.
Streetcars and Busses: Fares: Hollywood zone 5^ (streetcars only), to down
town Los Angeles xotf, Santa Monica 20^.
Taxis: 20$ first ^4 mile, lotf each additional l / 2 mile.
Information Bureaus: Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, 6520 Sunset Blvd.;
Automobile Club of Southern California, 6902 Sunset Blvd.; Randall Motor
Club, Inc., 5901 Sunset Blvd.
Accommodations: 24 first-class hotels, numerous apartment houses and bunga
low courts (see Los Angeles General Information}.
Auto and Trailer Camps: Ventura Blvd., 3 miles beyond Hollywood.
Radio Broadcast Theatres: Columbia Square Playhouse, Sunset Blvd. and
Gower St., CBS programs; National Broadcasting Co. Studios, Sunset Blvd.
and Vine St., NBC programs.
Colleges: Chapman College (Disciples of Christ), 677 N. Vermont Ave.;
Immaculate Heart Convent (Catholic), Western and Franklin Aves.
Sightseeing Tours of Motion-Picture Studios: Tanner Gray Line Motor Tours
(enter only Warner Bros.-First National Studios, Burbank), leave Biltmore
Hotel, sth and Olive Sts., weekdays only, $4.50 per person; busses pass all
other major studios but do not enter. Clifton Motor Tours, Inc., leave from
618 S. Olive St. daily, $1.50 per person; busses pass all major studios but
do not enter.
Note: Information concerning Traffic Regulations, Airports, Street Numbering,
Radio Stations, Theatres, Parks and Playgrounds, Sports, and Annual Events
in Hollywood may be found in Los Angeles General Information.
HOLLYWOOD (385 alt., 184,531 pop.), officially the Hollywood
District of Los Angeles, for it is not an independent city, lies on the
foothill slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains, eight miles from the
center of Los Angeles. Only recently have its boundaries been de
fined: on the east it is set off from Los Angeles proper by Hyperion
Avenue and Riverside Drive; on the south, by Melrose Avenue; the
hills and canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains bound it on the
north; the city of Beverly Hills adjoins it on the west. Along the
base of the mountains runs Hollywood Boulevard, or just "the Boule
vard," through the heart of the business district. Midway along it,
at Vine Street, is southern California s Times Square, an inexhaustible
source of comic and tragic material for columnists, romancers, de-
227
228 LOS ANGELES
bunkers, and serious novelists. Within a few blocks are large and
luxurious hotels, Grauman s flamboyant Chinese and Egyptian theatres,
elaborate beauty parlors and department stores, offices of booking agents
and of Variety, expensive shops and lO-cent stores, the Brown Derby
and other widely publicized restaurants where the consumption of
food and drink is incidental to seeing and being seen by "the right
people," such nocturnal "hot spots" as La Conga and The Tropics,
Radio City and Columbia Square, from which originate many of the
feature programs broadcast throughout the country, and often over
five continents, by NBC and CBS.
Along the western section of Sunset Boulevard, known as "the
Strip," are other theatrical agencies and expensive night clubs, jewelry
and antique shops, plush-carpeted salons of beauticians and couturiers,
almost all in gleaming white buildings of modified Georgian Colonial
design, flanked here and there with a drive-in Bar-B-Q stand, at which
customers are served by hooking trays on the open windows of the old
Ford from Iowa or the latest nickel-plated Rolls Royce in lemon and
maroon.
In all languages "Hollywood" is synonymous with "movies," yet
few film celebrities now live here and most of the studios are in sur
rounding communities: Culver City, Burbank, and West Los Angeles.
Off the main boulevards there is nothing "Hollywoodian" about Holly
wood, which is much like any other city, with modest houses along
quiet streets, lined with southern California s conventional palm, pep
per, and eucalyptus trees. Most of the houses are stucco or frame
bungalows, surrounded with lawns and gardens, although on the slopes
of the foothills above Hollywood Boulevard gleam some large and
elaborate mansions.
Hollywood, curiously, had a most conservative background. Unlike
Los Angeles, it occupies little space in the early Spanish or Mexican
annals. Only Cahuenga Pass, Hollywood s backdoor through the
mountains, receives important mention, for it was the principal route
between southern and northern California; through it passed the Por-
tola and the De Anza expeditions, the old Butterfield coaches of the
1850*8, and the lO-mule teams that hauled silver ore into Los Angeles.
After the Southern Pacific Railroad built its line through San Fernando
Valley in 1876, the pass was little used, but in recent years has again
come into its own, being one of the two main motor routes to the north.
Hollywood s first house, an adobe, was built by Don Tomas Urquidez
in 1853, on what is now the northwest corner of Franklin and Sycamore
Avenues. During the next 20 years Yankee homesteaders settled and
laid out farms. Among those who came from the Middle West during
the boom of the i88o s were Horace H. Wilcox and his wife, of To-
peka, Kansas. Prohibitionists and active members of the Methodist
Church, they bought a large tract of land at the base of the foothills
and in 1887 divided it into lots and christened their real estate develop
ment Hollywood. The pious and temperate community grew slowly;
as late as 1896 the most exciting event in the daily life of the village
HOLLYWOOD 229
was the arrival of the stage, which came crawling and lurching in on
the scraggly dirt road that wound across open country to Los Angeles.
Hollywood was totally unaware of Thomas Edison s "Living Pictures *
then being shown in a Los Angeles theatre. Up to 1900 the population
did not exceed 500, and deer often ventured down to Hollywood
Boulevard in the early morning. Incorporated as a city in 1903, the
community began to grow more rapidly, having some 4,000 people in
1910, but, being in urgent need of additional water supply, it allowed
itself to be absorbed by Los Angeles. But it still insisted upon being
recognized as a distinct community of sober, serious, church-going
people, having no taste for the more cosmopolitan airs of Los Angeles.
Within a year, however, its rural quietude w r as rudely shattered.
In 1911 the old Blondeau Tavern, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard
and Gower Street, was bought and converted into a makeshift movie
studio by the Nestor Company, directed by the Horsley brothers, who
had appreciated and decided to capitalize on southern California s al
most continuous sunshine, varied scenery, and "Western atmosphere."
The respectable and God-fearing were shocked and were themselves
soon dancing with rage at seeing baggy-trousered comedians prancing
up and down the streets; cowboys paraded the town on their skittish
broncos, to the terror and delight of small boys and the fuming exasper
ation of their elders; cops chased robbers, and cameramen chased both,
frantically turning cranks, up one street and down another of the once
sedate town, even preempting Hollywood Boulevard on occasion. With
the older Hollywood still protesting, other companies built studios, and
by 1920 the population had vaulted to 50,000 and the resulting boom
in real estate attained fantastic proportions.
The frenzied 1920*5, that now almost incredible era of Bip; Money
and still bigger debts, individual and corporate, found full expression
here. The movies became a billion dollar industry, and to all the
world Hollywood was its home, the fountainhead of the liveliest of the
seven lively arts, the great projecting room from which was flashed
on screens around the globe an endless series of scenes of genuine
heroism and "ham" heroics, of gripping romance and simple "gush,"
of moving sentiment and unabashed sentimentality, of high artistry
and sheer hokum. The current darlings of the screen began to pay
income taxes on salaries of six instead of five figures. Writers of
reputation were offered contracts that left them breathless and with
barely enough strength to sign, only to be left in solitary confinement
in magnificent offices, alternately praying and cursing for something
to do. Some stars objected, but most did not, as gossip columns and
"fan" magazines made public property of the most intimate details
of their private lives. Thousands of movie-struck boys and girls, and
many a doting parent with a suspected child prodigy in hand, poured
into the film capital to live in cheap hotels and rooming houses while
they talked shop, read the trade papers, and waited patiently to be
"discovered." Periodic scandals rocked the colony, and Hollywood s
"morals" became a favorite theme in pulpits from coast to coast. But
23O LOS ANGELES
Hollywood mores, then as now, did not differ essentially from those
of the average American city, although perhaps a bit more frank and
cynical in some regards; Hollywood cannot quietly enjoy and smack its
lips over a juicy bit of local scandal, as other cities do, for with the
spotlight constantly upon it, a local scandal is immediately national
news and the inspiration of more censure.
Since 1929, with the advent of the depression and the talkie, a
marked change has come over the cinema capital. Ostentatious display
of ermines and diamonds, expenditures for gold plumbing fixtures and
platinum cocktail shakers, have declined. The talkie has retired the
beautiful clotheshorse, whether male or female, and has demanded
more accomplished and inspired players, better writers, more imagina
tive directors, and technicians with higher and more varied skills.
These technicians script writers, assistant directors, still men, score
men, costume designers, make-up artists, research workers, electricians,
set designers and builders, engineers, cameramen, cutters, and many
others are those who make the wheels go round. Extras and bit
players constitute the largest group on the several movie lots and repre
sent virtually all races and nationalities from Chinese and Egyptians
to Russians and Hindus. Here, too, gather men and women of highly
diversified talents, all eager to capitalize on them while they may:
composers, stage designers, flyers, skaters, baseball and football players,
swimmers, novelists, poets, bronco-busters, tumblers and trapeze artists,
crooners and swing kings, even symphony conductors.
Although not more than 15,000 Hollywoodians derive their incomes
wholly and directly from the movies, three out of four of them are
more or less dependent on the industry. Scattered throughout Holly
wood are dozens of dance studios and dramatic schools offering training
to hopefuls, both children and adults. Two large companies here man
ufacture endless strips of "celluloid" on which to film miles and miles
of dare-devil thrills and "hot" romance. Hundreds of small firms
supply the studios with lumber, metal, electrical apparatus, objets d art,
period furniture and costumes, horses, trained animals, wigs, attire of
the latest fashion, and thousands of other things required in process
of production. Others are employed in the manufacture of movie
cameras and in processing film negatives.
Even before the depression it was common knowledge that only a
handful of extras earned a living wage and that many an ex-star hun
grily accepted any bit part that was offered, but it was not until 1938
that a scientific survey revealed that the average annual wage of tech
nicians was less than $1,500, and that four of every 10 film workers
were unemployed. Almost overnight Hollywood, once so individualis
tic, became unionized not only technicians and casual workers, but
screen writers, directors, top flight actresses and actors. Celebrities
gave up their rounds of social activities and their week ends at Palm
Springs to attend and often to lead political forums and meetings,
organizing an Anti-Nazi League, the Motion Picture Artists Com
mittee, the Motion Picture Democratic Committee, and, more recently,
HOLLYWOOD 23!
Associated Film Audiences, designed to marshal public support for
artistic films with realistic content and to fight censorship of plays
dealing with our current problems.
With its high concentration of players, singers, musicians, writers,
and other persons of talent, Hollywood has become second only to
New York as a radio center. Almost half of the programs broadcast
over national hookups originate in the studios here. The city is also
an important musical publishing center, making transcriptions of musi
cal revues for radio programs and millions of records of popular songs
and dance tunes. One of the more curious businesses is the phonograph
recording of snores, sneezes, and thousands of other noises for broad
casting purposes. The manufacture of cosmetics and the creation of
styles in women s clothes become more and more important in the local
economy, for in certain circles a label bearing the name "Hollywood"
has quite as magical an appeal as one reading "Paris."
A new and more serious Hollywood has emerged in recent years.
It now has six art galleries, numerous book shops, an art association,
and a botanical garden. Plays presented on the legitimate stage at the
Hollywood Playhouse and El Capitan do not want for audiences. The
"Symphonies under the Stars" presented regularly in the Hollywood
Bowl under the direction of conductors of international reputation
are known around the world. Sports still preoccupy many: polo and
horse racing attract those who can afford them; thousands get their
exercise vicariously at boxing matches and baseball games; the Holly
wood team in the Pacific Coast League is financed largely by members
of the film colony. Although the city is still growing, it is at the same
time achieving a new integration as it turns toward the more serious
concerns of the world and away from the "Never-never Land" of
adolescent romance. Hollywood has settled down to a less fantastic
way of living and a more mature view of life, and can no longer be
dismissed summarily as "the home of hokum."
POINTS OF INTEREST
BARNSDALL PARK (picnic facilities), bounded by Vermont
Ave., Edgemont St., Hollywood and Sunset Blvds., a loacre park
planted with olive trees, was deeded to the city in 1931 by Aline
Barnsdall, oil heiress. The former family residence is now an art
museum, art library and little theater (free). The donor s liberal
social and economic views have been for many years given expression on
signboards around the encircling strip of land.
1. The CALIFORNIA ART CLUB (open 2-5; adm. 25$, free
Thurs.), on the top of Olive Hill in the park, is the former home of
Miss Barnsdall. The gray cement structure, designed by Frank Lloyd
Wright, recalls the massive temples of the Aztecs. Occasional ex
hibits of contemporary art and permanent collections of California relics
and handcraft are shown here.
2. The names of 20,000 movie extras and bit players, together with
detailed information on the appearance, talents, and wardrobe of each,
232 LOS ANGELES
are on file in the CENTRAL CASTING OFFICE (see The
Movies), 5504 Hollywood Blvd., maintained by the larger motion-
picture studios.
3. COLUMBIA SQUARE (open 10-10 daily; adrn. 40$; guides),
6121 Sunset Blvd., is the Hollywood matrix of the Columbia Broad
casting System. The square, opened in 1938, was designed in the
modern manner by William Lescaze. Its three units border a patio
garden facing Sunset Boulevard. The five-story central structure, of
reinforced concrete and glass, houses seven modern studios, an audition
room, a transcription studio, and offices. Nationwide CBS broadcasts
originate in the 96oseat COLUMBIA SQUARE PLAYHOUSE, which faces
the patio garden.
COLUMBIA PICTURES CORPORATION (no visitors), 1438
Gower St., was founded by Jack and Harry Cohn, and Joe Brandt,
who withdrew from the Universal Pictures Co., Inc., to organize the
C-B-C Sales Co. in 1922, renting space in "Poverty Row" near the
site of the present studio. The first picture, The Hall Room Boys,
was followed by their first feature, More to Be Pitied than Scorned.
In the same year, they purchased the property near Sunset and Gower
where the administration building and nine sound stages are situated.
In 1924, the name was changed to the Columbia Pictures Corporation,
which since has had a sustained comedy production, including such pic
tures as It Happened One Night.
4 . EARL CARROLL S THEATRE RESTAURANT (open nightly
at 7), 6230 Sunset Blvd., housed in an ultramodern building designed
by Gordon B. Kaufmann, and opened in December 1938, has two re
volving stages 80 feet in diameter, one within the other ; there are three
floating stages, disappearing platforms, and a neon lighting system used
in musical extravaganzas and revues. The interior, divided into six
tiers, accommodates 1,000 persons. Members of the theatre s Inner
Circle Club pay $500 to $1,000 to sit in the first tier.
5. The NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY STUDIOS
(open 10-10; adm. 40$), Sunset Blvd. and Vine St., are housed in a
modern three-story concrete building designed by the Austin Company
of Los Angeles. The low horizontal mass is relieved by a higher corner
pavilion with vertical fenestration. Its concrete walls are finished in
blue green, harmonizing with the sky, lawns, and shrubs. Opened in
1938, the building has eight studios, four of which seat 350 persons
each.
6. The HOLLYWOOD POST OFFICE, NW. corner Selma and
Wilcox Aves., a white concrete two-story structure designed in the
modern manner by Claude Beelman and surrounded by well-kept lawns
and shrubbery, is illuminated at night by two large ornamental bronze
lanterns, one at each side of the broad front stairway. At the northern
end of the main corridor, a decorative relief, The Pony Express, by
Gordon Newell of the Federal Art Project, depicts two horses and a
pioneer stagecoach driver, carved on a piece of mahogany three feet
by five feet.
HOLLYWOOD 233
7. DE LONGPRE PARK, bounded by June St., De Longpre and
Cherokee Aves., with landscaped lawns, flower beds, clumps of bamboo,
and clusters of banana, pepper, and eucalyptus trees, has in the center
the RUDOLPH VALENTINO MEMORIAL, designed by Roger Noble Burn-
ham, and erected in 1930 with voluntary contributions from all over
the world to commemorate the "great lover" of the ig2o s. Entitled
Aspiration, the monument, a four-foot bronze male nude poised on a
globe, rises from a small lily pond. On each Memorial Day since
J93O, a "mystery" woman has placed a wreath on the statue.
8. The CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD, 6661-81 Sunset Blvd.,
extending to Selma Ave., is a block of shops and cafes designed to
create an Old World atmosphere. The shops face wide lanes radiating
from a spacious central patio; open-air concerts, pageants, and fashion
shows are staged in the shady courts. The ATLAS TOWER, above
the shops at the entrance, supports a revolving globe of the world,
symbolizing the commercial range of the center.
9. The EGYPTIAN THEATRE, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., designed
by Meyer and Holler, witnessed the first Hollywood "premiere," with
the showing of the silent version of Robin Hood in 1922. Now a
second-run house, it was the first architectural fantasy of Sid Grauman,
Los Angeles movie magnate. Hollywood s first-nighters once prom
enaded the long narrow forecourt that leads from the boulevard to the
four plain white columns at the entrance to the foyer. On the fore
court w r alls are large colored drawings of ancient Egyptian deities ; the
south end of the court is adorned with figures in plaster and stucco.
A heroic figure of the Egyptian god Osiris, guarding the foyer door,
and chattering live monkeys in cages along the court, greet the theatre s
patrons.
10. GRAUMAN S CHINESE THEATRE, 6925 Hollywood Blvd.,
another bizarre creation by Meyer and Holler, is widely known for the
fact that the concrete slabs in its forecourt bear the handprints and
footprints of movie stars and their congratulatory messages to Grau
man. The pseudo-Chinese facade represents a huge entrance gate to an
enclosed temple garden. Around the two gate piers and jutting into the
sky are four obelisks with Oriental decoration. At the end of the fore
court, planted with palms and ornamental shrubbery, is a pagoda with
POINTS OF INTEREST
1. California Art Club 8. Crossroads of the World
2. Central Casting Office 9. Egyptian Theatre
3. Columbia Square IO. Grauman s Chinese Theatre
4. Earl Carroll s Theatre Res- II. Japanese Gardens
taurant 12. Hollywood Bowl
5. National Broadcasting Com- 13. Samuel GnUhvyn Studios
pany s Studios 14. Hollywood Cemetery
6. Hollywood Post Office is. RKO Studios
7. De Longpre Park 16. Paramount Studios
FEDERAL WRITERS PROJECT LOS ANGELES CALIF.
HOLLYWOOD
236 LOS ANGELES
a jade-green bronze roof supported by two coral-red octagonal columns
bearing wrought-iron masks; the pagoda shelters a great stone dragon
30 feet high.
11. The JAPANESE GARDENS (open 10-6; adm. 25$, children
with adults free), Orchid and N. Sycamore Aves., were created in 1913
by Adolph and Eugene Bernheimer (see Tour 6), and enriched with
Oriental art objects housed in the 14-room YAMA SHIRO (castle on
the hill), designed in the manner of a Buddhist temple. In the eight-
acre garden, also known as the California Scenic Gardens and Home,
are more than 30,000 trees, including tropic and Arctic shrubs; a
pagoda from Japan ; and a miniature garden with reproductions of
ancient dwellings, dwarf trees, canals, and waterfalls.
12. The HOLLYWOOD BOWL (open), end of Bolton Rd., one
block south of the Highland Ave. and Cahuenga Blvd. intersection, is
a 59-acre natural amphitheatre owned by Los Angeles County. It seats
more than 20,000, with sloping runways providing standing room for
an additional 10,000. The removable sound shell of the stage, de
signed by Lloyd Wright and ornamented with shrubbery, supplements
the natural acoustics of the surrounding chaparral-covered hills and
makes the use of microphones unnecessary, an ordinary voice on the
stage being easily heard in the farthest row of seats. In the bowl the
"Symphonies under the Stars" series of summer concerts have been
presented annually since 1922; the annual Easter Sunrise Service is
also held here. Voluntary contributions for the support of the amphi
theatre are dropped in a large kettle, or bowl, at the upper end of
Pepper Tree Lane, near the entrance.
North of the main entrance a 1 5-foot figure of a kneeling woman
plucking a lyre rises from a fountain and terraced pools. Inside the
entrance, on Bolton Road, is an n-foot male figure, with the tradi
tional tragic and comic masks of the drama; to the north, on Highland
Avenue, is the third unit of the group, an n-foot female figure repre
senting the dance. The granite figures are by George Stanley, in
collaboration with the Federal Art Project.
13. The SAMUEL GOLDWYN STUDIOS (no visitors), 1041 N.
Formosa Ave., formerly the United Artists Studio, affords production
and distribution facilities to Alexander Korda, the British producer;
Samuel Goldwyn, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chap
lin, Walter Wanger, Selznidk-International, and Hal Roach; on its
i8^2-acre lot, which extends south from the buff-toned, stucco wall
and the office buildings along Santa Monica Boulevard, are eight huge
sound stages and 59 buildings. Samuel Goldwyn, the film-industry
pioneer whose name is now affiliated with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studio (see Tour 5), owns all buildings on the lot; the land is owned
by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. The burden of the average
annual production of 12 pictures at United Artists at present falls upon
Samuel Goldwyn and Alexander Korda. The original United Artists
Corporation, founded in 1919 purely as a releasing organization, was
HOLLYWOOD 237
the first of the powerful mergers in the motion-picture business, and
originated the highly remunerative "block booking" system.
14. HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY, 6076 Santa Monica Blvd., is
the resting place of many film notables, including Rudolph Valentino,
John Gilbert, William Desmond Taylor, Renee Adoree, Karl Dane,
Barbara LaMarr, and Theodore Roberts. Here, too, are the graves
of Harrison Gray Otis, long-time publisher of the Los Angeles Times;
William Andrews Clark, Ji., patron of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra; and Col. Griffith J. Griffith, who gave Griffith Park (see
The Northwest Section} to the city.
Every August 23, on the anniversary of the death of Rudolph Val
entino in 1926, the VALENTINO CRYPT is a mecca for several hundred
men and women, who file through the mausoleum to deposit floral
wreaths and bouquets. The unknown "Lady in Black," who for 12
years has come to kneel at the crypt and leave her garland of red roses,
is not the Memorial Day pilgrim to the Valentino monument in De
Longpre Park.
15. The i3-acre STUDIO OF THE RKO PICTURES CORPO
RATION (no visitors), 780 N. Gower St., consists of 19 buildings
and nine sound stages. One of the first "big" pictures produced in the
studio was Kismet, based on the life of Omar the Tentmaker. Between
45 and 50 feature pictures are produced annually at the studio.
1 6. The PARAMOUNT PICTURE CORPORATION STUDIO
(no visitors), 5451 Marathon St., occupies an office building, with red-
tile roof, and a heterogeneous group of 56 structures on a crowded
26-acre lot. The largest studio in Hollywood, with 20 sound stages,
it is the outgrowth of the nickelodeon firm established in 1902 by
Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor, an orphan from Hungary. In 1912
it was reorganized under Zukor as the Famous Players Film Com
pany, which presented such stars of the day as Mrs. Fiske, Ethel Barry-
more, and Mary Pickford, "America s Sweetheart."
aCCCCCC<CCKK<CKCCCCCC<C<KC^^^
Long Beach and Signal Hill
LONG BEACH
Railroad Station: Pacific Electric Ry., 156 W. Ocean Blvd.
Bus Stations: Union Bus Depot, 226 E. ist St., Greyhound Lines, Motor
Transit Lines, Motor Coach Lines; Central Bus Depot, 56 American Ave.,
National Trailways, Santa Fe Trailways ; Union Pacific Bus Station, 49
American Ave., Union Pacific Stages, Interstate Transit; All-American Bus
Lines, 222 E. ist St.
Airport: Long Beach Municipal Airport, 3301 E. Spring St.
Piers: Municipal Pier No. i, Channel No. 3 Inner Harbor (Pico Ave. and
Water St.), Los Angeles and San Francisco Navigation Co. ships to San
Francisco Tues. 5 p.m. Municipal Navy Landing, between Piers A and B,
outer Harbor; visits to warships Sun. and national holidays, by Navy shore
boats, 2-4 p.m., free; by water taxi, 50^ round trip. Charter boats for harbor
trips at most piers.
Taxis: Rates by zones and meter; minimum charge, 15^.
Streetcar and Bus Service: Streetcar, 6^; bus, 5^.
Traffic Regulations: Meter parking zone, Ocean Blvd. to yth St. between and
including Pacific and American Aves., 5^ per hr. ; 2-hr, limit in business district
outside meter zone. State traffic laws prevail.
Streets and Numbers: Avenues run N. and S., streets E. and W. Numbers
E. and W. from Pine Ave., N. and S. from Ocean Blvd.
Shopping District: Between Pacific and Atlantic Aves., from Ocean Blvd. to
yth St.
Information Bureaus: Chamber of Commerce, 109 American Ave.; Travelers
Aid, 156 W. Ocean Blvd.; City Hall, Pacific Ave. and Broadway; Public
Library, Lincoln Park, Pacific Ave. and Ocean Blvd.
Newspapers: Press-Telegram, eve. and Sun.; Sun, morn, except Sun.
Radio Stations: KFOX, 220 E. Anaheim St., KGER, 435 Pine Ave.
Churches: 98 churches and other places of worship, representing most de
nominations and creeds.
Accommodations: 88 hotels, 1,375 apartment houses and courts, numerous auto
and trailer camps. Wide range of rates.
Theatres: 21 motion-picture houses, principally in downtown business district
and amusement zone.
Parks and Playgrounds: 24 public parks and playgrounds totaling more than
980 acres. Almost all types of recreational facilities and equipment available.
Swimming: 8 miles of beaches; still-water swimming at Marine Stadium,
Alamitos Bay, and lagoon enclosed by Rainbow Pier at foot of American Ave.;
238
LONG BEACH AND SIGNAL HILL 239
salt-water plunge, Colorado Lagoon, Recreation Park; adm. free; indoor
plunge at foot of Pacific Ave. ; adults 40^, children 30^.
Golf: Recreation Park (municipal), E. yth St. and Park Ave., 2 courses,
9 and 18 holes, green fees 50^ and 75? daily, $i Sun., holidays; $5 per mo.;
Lakewood Country Club (open to public), Cherry Ave. and E. Carson St.,
18 holes, fees 75^ daily, 50^ before 8 a.m. and after 3 p.m.; Meadowlark
Country Club (open to public), Coast Hwy. at Sunset Beach, 18 holes, fees
50^ daily.
Tennis: 10 municipal courts, 2 lighted. 23 school courts open to public after
school hours.
Fishing: Surf and pier fishing permitted. Boats from Pier B, foot of Santa
Clara Ave., daily at intervals from 2-7:30 a.m., returning about 3:30 p.m.,
$2-$3 per day. Barges reached by boat from Belmont Pier, foot of Belmont
PI., daily 8 a.m. -3 p.m. at i^2-hr. intervals, $i. (All prices include bait and
tackle.)
Annual Events: See Los Angeles Calendar of Events.
SIGNAL HILL
Railroad Station: Pacific Electric Ry., Los Angeles-Newport Beach Line, on
private right-of-way, between Walnut and Cherry Aves.
Bus Station: Lang Bus Co., Clearwater-Long Beach line stops on signal at
Cherry Ave. interstections.
Taxis: Taxis on call from Long Beach stands. Long Beach zone and meter
rates prevail.
Traffic Regulations: State traffic laws prevail.
Streets and Numbers: Avenues and streets in the level area south and west
of the hill are continuations of Long Beach thoroughfares. Avenues run
N. and S., streets E. and W.
Information Bureau: Signal Hill City Hall and Justice Court, Cherry Ave.,
between 2ist and Hill Sts.
LONG BEACH (47 alt., 164,271 pop.), a seaside resort, a busy har
bor, home port for some 40,000 officers and men of the U.S. Navy,
and one of the world s great oil centers, stretches for eight miles along
San Pedro Bay. The fifth largest of California s cities, it lies 20 miles
southeast of Los Angeles. Along the ocean is the long beach for which
the city was named a wide band of white sand, to which come hun
dreds of thousands every year to bask in the sun, swim, dive into the
curving breakers, row or sail boats, and fish from piers or barges an
chored offshore. Along the strand, at the foot of Pine Ave., the city s
main street, is the Pike, a raucous amusement area, with roller coasters,
side shows, hot dog stands, and similar attractions; staid townspeople
rather frown upon it as rowdy and noisy, but they overlook this for
the sweet music played by tourists and children s dimes and quarters
as they clink at the change booths.
To the west, set off by the Los Angeles River, is the industrial
section and the harbor, protected by a breakwater built in 1928. It
consists of both an inner and an outer harbor, dredged to accommodate
24O LOS ANGELES
ocean-going ships; marine traffic approximates $50,000,000 a year.
Close to the wharves are some 400 industrial plants which produce
gasoline and other petroleum products, canned fish, clothing, tools,
soap, vegetable oils, and ships. Offshore, for many months of the year,
lies the U.S. Battle Fleet, a formidable steel-gray armada by day, at
night an eerie line of blinking lights cut by beams of powerful search
lights. The fleet is an important factor in the city s economic life.
Almost all of the officers maintain homes in Long Beach, and thou
sands of blue jackets visit the city regularly on shore leave.
To the east are parks, the newer residential sections, eucalyptus
groves, and the lagoons of Alamitos Bay, as the city trails off into open
country. On the north, bristling with tall oil derricks, rises Signal
Hill, the center of an independent municipality of the same name.
The downtown district of tall office buildings and hotels, shops and
theatres, extends northward from the beach along Pine and other
streets. Beyond, the city is laid out in rigid rectangular pattern,
squared to the main points of the compass ; cafes, garages, used-car lots,
stores, and markets line the main thoroughfares; along the quiet side
streets, shaded by palm and pepper trees, stand frame and stucco bun
galows, for the most part, although there are many larger and more
elaborate white stucco houses along East Ocean Blvd., which swings
in an arc on the yellow bluffs above the beach, and on the sandy slopes
overlooking the ocean, lagoons, and winding canals around Alamitos
Bay.
Much of the architecture reflects the origin and the ideals of the
elderly Midwesterners, who constitute a large part of the population.
The annual Iowa Picnic held in Bixby Park attracts more than 100,000
people. Having come here to spend their declining years, they are
conservative, Protestant, church-going, and home-loving, although ven
turing forth frequently to attend Sunday School picnics and Ladies
Aid bazaars. They are inveterate "joiners," supporting some 200 civic
and social organizations. Many men play horseshoes daily in Lincoln
Park, while others join heated sessions of the "Spit and Argue Club"
on the Municipal Pier, to discuss politics and religion. For many years
dancing, card playing, drinking, and modern bathing suits were regu
larly and vehemently denounced here, with no appreciable effect on the
younger generation, which, unimpressed by jeremiads on fire and brim
stone, went its own light-hearted way and here, as elsewhere, the
"shocking" has now become usual. Since the depression the traditional
political conservatism of the older generation has broken down, ship
wrecked on the hard rock of reality, for many a retired farmer, trades
man, and country doctor found his savings of a lifetime wiped out in
the economic collapse. It is no accident that Dr. Francis E. Townsend,
an elderly local doctor from the Middle West, started his old age pen
sion scheme here.
In 1784, three years after the establishment of the pueblo of Los
Angeles, Governor Pedro Fages began to distribute land in the name
of the King of Spain and to one Manuel Nieto, a soldier, allotted all
L O N C H I \ C H A X D SIGNAL HILL 24!
the land between the Santa Ana and San Gabriel Rivers, a grant of
300,000 acres, extending from the sea to the northeastern foothills ; the
grant was later split into five ranches. On Nieto s death, Don Juan
Jose Nieto, his son, succeeded to Rancho Los Alamitos (the little cot-
tonwoods), and Dona Manuela Nieto inherited Rancho Los Cerritos
(the little hills) ; these two ranches embraced the present site of Long
Beach.
In 1840 Abel Stearns (see The Historical Background) bought
Rancho Los Alamitos, and three years later John Temple, a Los Angeles
merchant, became the owner of Rancho Los Cerritos through his mar
riage with Dona Rafaela Cota, descendant of Don Manuel Nieto. The
two Massachusetts Yankees lived as Spanish dons and were the only
ranch owners in the entire district. They became friendly rivals, and
staged barbecues, rodeos, and bullfights, as well as an annual inter-ranch
horse race, the course running from Signal Hill straight to the sea. But
the drought years of 1862-64 put an end to the prosperity of the two
Yankees; during those years, it is said, 50,000 cattle died on Rancho
Los Alamitos alone. Stearns and Temple mortgaged and sold their
properties, and by 1878 all of what is now Long Beach had passed into
the hands of the Bixby family.
In 1880, W. E. Willmore, an Englishman, secured an option from
Jotham Bixby on 4,000 acres, organized the "American Colony," and
advertised Willmore City, as he called it, throughout the nation. He
offered 5-, 10-, 20-, and 4O-acre farms at $12.50, $15, and $20 an acre;
and at $100 an acre he offered 3- or 4-year-old orange trees, 70 to the
acre. The venture failed, however, and in 1884 Willmore relinquished
his option. But the plans of the city remained, for it had been sur
veyed and laid out in 1882, with its present streets and Pacific Park.
The Long Beach Land and Water Company then took over the
settlement, renamed it Long Beach, improved the water system, built
a hotel and wharf, instituted a horse-car line, and connected the town
with the Wilmington line of the Southern Pacific. Thereafter de
velopment was rapid. During the boom of the i88o s Long Beach
became a popular seaside resort. With the completion of the Pacific
Electric Railway line to Long Beach in 1902 its growth became even
more rapid. In 1908 Long Beach adopted its first charter, which
provided for a mayor and council form of government. This was suc
ceeded in 1915 by a commission plan; and the present managerial sys
tem, under which a city manager is appointed by the council, was
adopted in 1921.
In 1906 the Los Angeles Dock and Terminal Company, organized
locally, developed the inner harbor by dredging channels and building
jetties, and three years later John F. Craig established the first large
shipyard in southern California, and dredged a channel from it to the
sea. Plans to develop a large port were facilitated in 1911 when the
state granted to Long Beach all tidal flats and submerged lands along
its boundaries. In 1917 the Los Angeles Dock and Terminal Com
pany deeded all its navigable channels to the city, and the next vear
242 LOS ANGELES
Federal development of the harbor began. Shipping was highly stimu
lated in 1921 by the discovery of a phenomenally rich oil field on Signal
Hill. A further grant of tidelands along the extended boundaries of
the city was made in 1925, and Long Beach developed into an impor
tant port and naval base.
The Long Beach earthquake of 1933, in which 118 persons lost
their lives and $40,000,000 worth of property was damaged in Long
Beach and the surrounding communities, only momentarily broke
the city s stride. This earthquake, the second most destructive in the
history of the United States, began about dinnertime on March 10 and
continued with lessened violence for several days; it was produced by a
fault slip in the ocean off Newport Beach. Long Beach, like other
communities in the devastated area, had most of its schools leveled by
the shock. Faulty building construction was responsible for much of
the damage; steps have been taken to see that such a condition does
not exist in the future.
SIGNAL Hill (364 alt., 3,184 pop.), a small independent munici
pality, economically a part of Long Beach, occupies the hill down
which Don Juan Temple and Don Abel Stearns once started their
horses in races to the shore and back again. Streets and roads wind
through a forest of oil derricks, with here and there a cluster of cot
tages near grimy palm trees.
Here, on June 23, 1921, a discovery or "wildcat" well driven by
the Royal Dutch Shell Company came in, but like many discovery wells,
with a small production. By the end of the year some 500 greasy
derricks spindled skyward; by midyear 1922, 500; by the end of 1923,
more than 1,000 on an area of little more than two square miles,
making the field one of the most intensively developed in the world.
Almost overnight, "million dollar views" became million dollar leases
as production mounted to a daily average of almost 250,000 barrels.
Thousands poured in to work in the field or to speculate in leases;
there was a frenzied boom in surrounding real estate. Within two
years the number of ships using the Panama Canal was doubled by
the increase in tankers carrying California oil. Los Angeles became
one of the great oil ports of the world. Within a decade the popula
tion of Long Beach tripled as the flow of "liquid gold" from Signal
Hill was piped to its wharves and refineries. The field reached its peak
production in 1923 with sixty-eight million barrels, the output for the
first ten years being more than four hundred million barrels. Since
discovery it has remained one of the largest producing oil fields in
California.
After the completion in 1859 of the Drake well, the first in the
world, at Titusville, Pa., prospectors sought likely localities around
the oil and tar seepages and natural asphaltum deposits in Humboldt,
Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and Kern Counties. By 1867 some 50
wells had been drilled but produced only 5,000 barrels of oil, valued
at $10,000. In 1873, C. A. Mentre, a Pennsylvania driller, secured
LONG BEACH AND SIGNAL HILL 243
leases in Pico Canyon (see Tour 7), and with primitive equipment
drilled a hole 30 feet deep, from which oozed a barrel or two of oil a
day. In 1883 the production of crude oil in the State totaled a mere
2,500 barrels a day.
The Brea-Olinda field (see Tour 4), the first in the Los Angeles
Basin, was opened in 1897; U P to 1 9 1 9 new discoveries in the Los An
geles Basin were confined to the eastern section of Los Angeles County
and the northwestern corner of Orange County, consisting of the fol
lowing fields: Whittier and Coyote, 1912; Montebello, 1917; Rich
field- Yorba Linda, 1919; Santa Fe Springs, 1919.
In 1920 development shifted to the coastal strip of Los Angeles
and Orange Counties, where 13 new fields were opened prior to 1937.
The field at Huntington Beach (see Tour J), discovered in May 1920,
followed on June 23, 1921, by Signal Hill, were among the richest
ever discovered. The upper sands in the field were soon depleted, but
late in 1923 other oil-bearing sands were struck below 5,000 feet,
and derricks spread northwest to the Chateau Thierry district and
southwest to Reservoir Hill; in 1938 a well was brought in at 10,000
feet. The extraordinary depth of the sands account for the phenomenal
aggregate production per acre of the Signal Hill field. The 21 fields
in the Los Angeles Basin produced more than half of the State s
250,000,000 barrels of crude in 1938, which represented more than
12 per cent of the national and roughly 8 per cent of the world total.
At the same time the fields supplied 267,292,000,000 cubic feet of
natural gas.
Refining of crude oil constitutes the greatest single division of in
dustry in Los Angeles County; its 35 refineries had an output in 1937
valued at $228,500,000. In addition, 52 plants produce casing head
gasoline from natural gas by a process of evaporation and condensation.
This process was discovered in 1911 when it was found that in a gas
pipe line laid along the bottom of the Los Angeles River gasoline ac
cumulated in those sections of pipe under water but not at other points
on the line. Crude oil is refined by a heating process, which boils out
gasoline, kerosene, gas oil, lubricating oil, fuel oil, wax, and asphalt,
each of which vaporizes at a different temperature; during the process
temperatures range from 200 to 575 degrees. Crude oil is graded by
its specific gravity; the higher the gravity, the greater the gasoline,
kerosene, and naphtha content. Los Angeles Basin crude oil brought
an average price of 99 cents a barrel in 1938.
Drilling was begun on the ocean floor in 1894, an d derricks rise
in the waters west from Long Beach to Wilmington. Drilling for oil
is not the haphazard business it once was. The geologist, paleontologist,
and geophysicist have reduced it to a science by a study of the conditions
under which oil is likely to be found. It remains for the drill, how
ever, to prove the accuracy of their deductions on the possible presence
of oil in untested territory. Many a well driven at their advice has
been a "duster," or dry hole.
When a "wildcat" well is to be driven to test a suspected field, a
244 L O S ANGELES
derrick is erected over the chosen spot ; most derricks in the Los Angeles
Basin are of the combination-rig type, 122 feet high, of wood or steel;
steel is frequently required by law in fields lying within incorpo
rated limits of a tow r n or city, to lessen fire hazard. For wells deeper
than 6,000 feet some go down as far as 14,000 feet huge derricks
of 2OO feet or more are used. When the derrick has been completely
rigged with machinery, boilers, cables, and crown block of wood or
metal, fitted with large pulleys, the well is ready to be "spudded,"
either with a drill that bores into the earth or with a percussion drill
that literally pounds its way down. After a depth of 100 to 200 feet
has been reached, the drill is withdrawn and a casing is inserted to
wall the hole, and this process is repeated at regular intervals.
Operations are interrupted now and again by the necessity of doing
a "fishing job" to recover drills or casing lost in the hole. In the
coastal area, where subterranean channels of sea water are sometimes
encountered, cement is forced down the hole under high pressure;
when it hardens, it forms a solid plug, through which the well is then
bored. The entire procedure is supervised by a driller, who operates
the engine, while "roughnecks" handle pipe, make connections, pull and
place slips. A drilling crew works 24 hours a day, in three shifts, called
Tours, pronounced "Towers."
When the driller believes that oil sands have been reached, the drill
bit and pipe are withdrawn, and an oil string, of "perforated," is
inserted. Gas pressure forces oil through the small perforations and
up the pipe. As mud and water are bailed out and dumped into the
slump hole, the gas gradually lifts the oil toward the surface until it
boils out of the casing mouth to be piped to tank farm or refinery.
On occasion, however, the gas pressure is such that when the drill is
withdrawn, a column of oil spouts into the air to "paint the crown
block." These gushers are often difficult to control, but are not to be
compared with "outlaw" gas wells. When a drill breaks through the
thick "cap rock" over an oil pool, the force of the escaping gas some
times crumples a derrick as if it were built of matchsticks; it may de
velop into a burning "gasser" if rocks and pieces of cement strike the
casing and throw off a spark. Such "outlaws," which have not de
stroyed the casing head and control valves, are tamed by the use of long
rods attached to the controls. Behind a protective shield, workmen
manipulate these bars until the pressure is reduced sufficiently to permit
a crane to drop a heavy metal "cap" over the casing. Where valves
cannot be worked by remote control but the casing head is still intact,
a crane is brought into position and a forty-foot flue is set over it.
This elevates the flame to a height where workmen can approach the
well and install a control manifold and shut off the flow. In cases
where the casing head is destroyed, the modern practice is to drill a
vertical hole to a certain depth in the vicinity of the "wild" well and
then "whipstock" at an angle until the "outlaw" is tapped. Liquid
mud, under heavy pressure, is then pumped into the well until it stops
the flow of gas or oil.
LONG BEACH AND SIGNAL HILL 245
The cost of drilling a well varies with geologic conditions, depth,
and mechanical difficulties. The average well strikes oil at 4,100 feet
and costs approximately $45,000. In fields such as Signal Hill, where
properties are numerous and small, many of the wells are uneconomical
from any broad point of view. An oil pool is a geologic and economic
unit, but is not developed as such. Legally, every producer owns all
the oil under his property, but oil is no respecter of property lines and
flows toward the nearest well. In self-protection, therefore, producers
drill "offset" wells around the edge of their properties to prevent them
from being drained by neighboring wells, thus doubling and tripling the
number of wells that would be required by any sensible and rational
system of exploitation.
Signal Hill, resembling an aroused porcupine, bristles with der
ricks, in the shadow of which are tanks, engine houses, machine shops,
and a few grimy cottages occupied by oil workers. At night the bright
lights on the derricks turn the hill, often referred to as "The Pin
cushion," into a curious, gaunt, illuminated forest.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The CIVIC CENTER includes the City Hall, the Municipal
Utilities Building, and the Veterans Memorial Building, which front
south toward Lincoln Park on Broadway, between Pacific and Cedar
Avenues; the Public Library is in the park itself, facing Ocean Boule
vard.
1. The CITY HALL, NW. corner of Broadway and Pacific Ave.,
facing Lincoln Park, is a modern eight-story building of buff-colored
concrete, designed by Horace W. Austin and completed in 1934.
2. The VETERANS MEMORIAL BUILDING, on Broadway
west of the Municipal Utilities Building, is a four-story, concrete struc
ture of modern design with a decorative frieze above the entrance.
The building, completed in 1938, was designed by George Kahrs; the
frieze, by Merrell Gage.
LINCOLN PARK, bounded by Broadway, Ocean Blvd., Pacific,
and Cedar Aves., is shaded by 5O-year-old pepper and eucalyptus trees.
Roque and horseshoe courts contribute to the popularity of this down
town retreat; the Long Beach Tourist Horseshoe Club uses the 10
courts daily. This pioneer playground, originally set off as Pacific
Park in the early plats of Willmore City, was donated to the city by
the Long Beach Land and Water Company in 1888. Its name was
changed to Lincoln Park in 1915, at the unveiling of the Lincoln
Monument.
3. Lincoln Park assumes the character of an Old World square on
mornings when the MUNICIPAL MARKET (Tues., Thurs., and
Sat., 7-12), conducted by the city as a public convenience, takes over
half the width of both Broadway and Pacific Avenue, on two sides of
Lincoln Park. Canvas stalls on the sidewalks display local, state,
national, and foreign produce fruits, nuts, jellies, vegetables, home-
LONG BEACH
SCALE
ON MILE.
POINTS (
1. City Hall
2. Veterans Memorial Building
3. Municipal Market
4. Public Library
5. Lincoln Monument
6. Million-Dollar Bathhouse
7. Municipal Navy Landing
8. Small Boat Anchorage
TEREST
9. Procter & Gamble Co. Plant 12. Adobe Los Alamitos
10. Municipal Auditorium 13. Old Long Beach Cemetery
u. Wayside Art Colony 14. Adobe Los Cerritos
248 LOS ANGELES
made butter, and cottage cheese. Green-tinted duck eggs, chickens and
ducks, roasted a rich brown and ready to serve, are sold by the Chinese.
Italian fishwives offer filets of yellowtail, sea bass, and barracuda,
dressed with olive oil and cured in the sun before smoking. From 15
to 20 different nationalities are represented. Supervised by the City
Market Master, who prohibits ballyhoo and barkers, the market and
its products are subject to rigid inspection; in general, prices are low,
and quality high. The market was established in 1913 and is sponsored
by the Woman s City Club.
4. The PUBLIC LIBRARY, in the center of Lincoln Park, built in
1908 with the aid of an Andrew Carnegie grant, was remodeled in
J 936-37 by D. E. Herrald on modern lines to harmonize with other
Civic Center buildings.
5. To the south of the library is the 1 5-foot LINCOLN MONU
MENT, a life-size granite figure of the martyred president by Peter
Bisson, erected in 1915 by means of private contributions and public
funds.
The PIKE, an amusement zone extending almost a mile along the
beach west of the intersection of American Ave. and Ocean Blvd., has
appropriately been called the "Walk of a Million Lights," and is a
major local "industry."
6. Midway along the Pike is the Silver Spray Pier, and the MIL
LION-DOLLAR BATHHOUSE (rates 30$ to 40$), with an indoor
salt-water plunge. Shooting galleries, penny arcades, a roller coaster,
side shows, a merry-go-round, miniature automobiles, power scooters,
and similar amusements attract children and adults alike. Curio shops
offer Mexican hammered silver, pottery, and needlework; Chinese,
Japanese, and East Indian brass work; Spanish embroideries and Italian
laces; native Indian basketry, shell, and beadwork. Among annual
events are the Baby Parade, the Bathing Beauty Contest, the Pet Pa
rade, and the Doll Fiesta. New Year s Eve, Hallowe en, and Fourth
of July are celebrated here by vast crowds of costumed merrymakers.
7. The MUNICIPAL NAVY LANDING, at the foot of Pico Ave.
in the Outer Harbor is the clearing station for enlisted men s shore
boats, officers gigs and numerous water taxis, plying between shore
and the vessels of the United States BATTLE FLEET (open to public
Sun. and holidays 2-4; transportation on Navy shore boats free), seen
lying at anchor some two to three miles offshore, in the Outer Harbor,
much of the year. When the fleet is in 45,000 officers and men swarm
ashore at the San Pedro (see The Harbor) and Long Beach Navy
landings.
Over the waters when the fleet is in, flash burnished launches carry
ing officers and open shore boats, crowded with sailors and marines.
The dock is thronged with the families and friends of officers and men,
as they arrive on liberty or leave for their ships. On the wharf of the
landing are Roosevelt Post Office, water-taxi ticket offices, Red Cross
and Navy Patrol stations, and quarters of the Navy storekeeper.
Los Angeles Harbor is the base of major units of the fleet, including
LONG BEACH AND S I C X A L HILL 249
the flagships of the commander-in-chief, and the commanders of the
Battle, Base, and Scouting Forces. Regularly stationed here are 14
battleships and two airplane carriers of the Battle Force; 16 heavy
cruisers of the Scouting Force ; the hospital ship U.S.S. Relief ; and
repair ships, mine sweepers, oilers, and supply vessels of the Base Force.
The battleships displace tonnages of 27,000 to 32,500 each, and carry
main batteries of 14- to 1 6-inch guns, supplemented by six-inch sec
ondary and five-inch anti-aircraft batteries. Each carries 60 officers and
1, 200 men. The aircraft carriers U.S.S. Lexington and U.S.S. Sara
toga each carry 80 planes of varying types.
The fleet was first based here in 1919, when a portion of the At
lantic Fleet was detached for service in this area in response to insistent
demands for more adequate defense on the Pacific coast.
8. The SMALL BOAT ANCHORAGE, head of Slip No. 3, just off
Pico Ave., is the home port of numerous yachts and cruisers discarded
by wealthy owners, and motorboats of every type. On the shores of
the slip are small shipyards.
9. The PROCTER AND GAMBLE COMPANY PLANT (open
workdays 9:30-10:30 and 2-3; guides provided), 1601 W. 7th St., occu
pies a group of six-story concrete structures, on a 15-acre site fenced
from the street. Visitors can observe the complete process of manufac
turing soap from vegetable oils, chiefly cocoanut, cottonseed, and lin
seed.
10. The MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM, occupying an eight-acre
filled-in area at the foot of American Ave., is a $3,000,000 reinforced
concrete structure, with Indiana limestone facing, rising to a height
of nine stories. The building, light brown in color, is designed in the
Italian Renaissance style with a monumental arched loggia on the
front facade and a circular, arcaded bay at the rear. Italian marble has
been used in the interior lobbies, and the foyer floors are of terrazzo.
A main convention hall, two smaller convention halls, a concert hall,
six committee rooms, and an exhibit hall bring the total seating ca
pacity to 8,600. Surrounding gardens contain palm trees, semitropical
horticultural specimens, paneled lawns, and spacious flower beds. The
building and grounds project into a wide lagoon which in turn is en
closed by an encircling pier. The auditorium, designed by MacDowell
and Austin and completed in 1932, is the center for varied activities:
Municipal Band concerts, the weekly Sunday morning meetings of the
world s largest men s Bible class, the annual Navy Ball, symphony
orchestra concerts, and the annual Art Festival; the weekly Com
munity Service Programs include community singing, a stage program,
and old-time square dancing.
A tile mosaic, Recreation in Long Beach, designed by Nord, King,
and Wright, and executed by 40 artists and craftsmen of the Los An
geles Federal Art Project, rises from the fifth story, and is said to be
the largest tile mosaic in the world. At night the auditorium is illu
minated by powerful floodlights.
Less than a mile west of the Rainbow Pier and the ocean-front
25O LOS ANGELES
amusement zone is the HARBOR DISTRICT. Ocean Boulevard,
Broadway, and Seventh Street lead directly to the port from the city s
downtown business center, and Pico Avenue penetrates the area from
the north.
The inner harbor consists of Cerritos Channel, opening into the
East Basin of the Los Angeles Harbor, and two branches, Slips Nos.
2 and 3, extending 3,000 feet eastward. The main channel and the
two slips provide nine miles of water frontage. Municipal piers in the
inner harbor have 3,600 feet of dockage; those in the outer harbor
provide an additional 3,500 feet. Black steamship funnels, swinging
cranes, slender factory smokestacks, steel struts carrying power cables,
and modern steel oil derricks reveal the mutiplicity of activities in the
Long Beach Harbor.
The whole Long Beach Harbor area has been created from half
submerged tidelands and low flats at the mouth of the Los Angeles
River. Sloughs north of the present Terminal Island formerly carried
the main currents to the ocean. In times of flood the river waters
washed over the entire flat as far as San Pedro. The deepest of the
sloughs have been opened and deepened to form the inner harbors of
Los Angeles (see The Harbor) and Long Beach.
The first development work followed the establishment of the Craig
shipbuilding plant south of the river mouth, now Slip No. 3 of the
inner harobr, in 1907. Work was begun on an ocean entrance to the
channel and a high tide, in June 1909, finished the work, opening the
slough to the sea. Within three months Long Beach voted a bond issue
of $245,000 for the purchase of 2,200 feet of water frontage on the
channel and the construction of a municipal wharf, and in 1918 Con
gress provided for the dredging of Cerritos Channel. Construction of
the Long Beach jetty, completed in 1928, made possible the develop
ment of the outer harbor.
RAINBOW PIER (open to pedestrian and vehicular traffic}, with
entrances at both Pine and Linden Aves. on the shore front, describes
a 3,8oo-foot crescent around the Auditorium s lagoon. The pier, com
pleted in 1931 at a cost of $1,400,000, rests on a rock breakwater and
is a vantage point from which to observe water carnivals on the 32-acre
lagoon, which also offers ideal still-water bathing. The Long Beach
Recreation Commission maintains a supervised recreational program
here, including canoeing and various aquatic classes for children,
ii. The WAYSIDE ART COLONY, 74 Atlantic Ave., occupies a
group of eight brown frame buildings art shops, studios, and private
art schools in a rustic setting. Activities of the artists, who call them
selves "crafters," include wood and metal work, painting, weaving,
needlework, music, and dancing.
BIXBY PARK, two city blocks bounded by Ocean Blvd., Broad
way, Cherry and Junipero Aves., has wide rolling lawns thickly shaded
by live oak, pine, cypress, acacia, sycamore, and palm trees. In the
lo-acre park are held many of the state picnics for which Long Beach
is renowned. The Iowa picnic on the second Saturday in February is
LONG BEACH AND SIGNAL HILL 251
attended by 75,000 to 100,000 former residents of the Hawkeye State.
In the park s eastern section are playground apparatus, bandstand,
tables and shelters, and a house where food and coffee are heated by
attendants (free}. The park was created in the i88o s when the town-
site was laid out, partially under the direction of John W. Bixby, for
whom the plot was named, and was deeded to the city in 1903.
ALAMITOS BAY, eastern termination of Ocean Blvd., a popular
spot for aquatic sports, covers the old tidal channels through which the
San Gabriel River found an outlet to the sea. The bay provides seven
miles of landlocked waterways, offering splendid harborage for small
craft and still-water bathing. Most of the south and west shores are
publicly owned, and contain a number of supervised playgrounds. The
37-acre STATE PARK, one of the bay playgrounds, under lease from
the State of California by the Long Beach Recreation Commission,
extends to the tip of the peninsula and has 6,000 feet of beach, on both
the ocean and bay side of the spit; the bay side is protected from high
tides by a 2OO-foot rubble wall four feet high.
The labyrinth of canals of NAPLES, a section of the Alamitos
district lying west of the Vista del Golfo arm of the bay, and reached
by way of Second Street, are fed by the tidal currents of the bay.
Along the canals are hundreds of attractive houses:, set among green
lawns and tropical vegetation. Arched bridges, like those of Venice,
span the waterways and provide access to the islands.
The OLYMPIC MARINE STADIUM, Colorado St. and Nieto
Ave., was constructed for the rowing races in the 1932 Olympiad. The
course is 2,000 meters, or 1.31 miles; a boathouse has showers and phy-
sican s quarters; grandstand and bleachers seat 20,000 spectators. High
school physical education classes in rowing are conducted at the sta
dium, and a model yacht championship regatta is held annually, with
some loo small vessels as entries.
The 8i-acre COLORADO LAGOON, south of Recreation Park,
affords exceptional facilities for water sports. In the model boatshop,
in the clubhouse, many types of miniature craft are constructed under
the direction of expert instructors, and an annual exposition is held each
April to exhibit the work of amateur shipbuilders.
In RECREATION PARK, yth St. and Ximeno Ave., is held an
annual Twelfth Night celebration at which the city s discarded Christ
mas trees are consumed in a huge bonfire. The park, with a fine ex
panse of lawns and distinctive eucalyptus woodland, contains children s
playgrounds, baseball diamonds, bowling greens, clubhouse, barbecue
pits, coffee house, and a flycasting pool, a sport rarely provided for.
12. The central and oldest part of the ADOBE LOS ALAMITOS,
NW. corner I5th St. and Hathaway Ave., is believed to have been
built in 1784 by Manuel Nieto, then 70 years old, as a home for his
1 6-year-old bride. Set in a semitropical garden on a hilltop, the adobe
retains the atmosphere of the Spanish inspiration. The two-story unit
and the two wings are finished with offwhite plaster. The left wing is
252 LOS ANGELES
part of the original adobe, with walls about three feet thick. Clay from
the adjacent wet lands was employed in making the large adobe bricks.
At the time of construction Nieto had acquired 300,000 acres of
land, later known as the Rancho Los Alamitos (ranch of the little
poplars), which extended from the Los Angeles River to the Santa Ana
River, and as far inland as he could push it without conflict with the
prior claims of the Pueblo of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mission.
In 1840 Abel Stearns (see Downtown Los Angeles), a Massachusetts
Yankee, purchased the rancho and transformed the old mud hut into a
summer home for his bride, Arcadia Bandini, and in 1878 John W.
Bixby, who had leased part of the ranch, further restored and enlarged
the house. The estate now covers 3,700 acres. Near the house is an
ancient Indian kitchen midden, or shell mound.
The LONG BEACH MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, Temple Ave.
and Spring St., comprising 588 acres, has two paved runways illumin
ated at night by floodlights. The revolving beacon is visible from 20
to 80 miles. Buildings include hangars and the administration offices,
and both the Army and Navy maintain hangars. The airport, estab
lished in 1924, was among the first civic aviation fields in California.
SIGNAL HILL, one of the world s richest oil fields, rises at the
northern limits of Long Beach, and is unmistakably identified by the
hundreds of oil derricks that encircle and crown it. By 1938, 598,-
673,732 barrels of oil and 803,342 million cubic feet of natural gas
had been taken from the 1,350 proven acres of the field, a source of
wealth to thousands.
13. The four-acre OLD LONG BEACH CEMETERY, NW. cor
ner of Willow St. and Orange Ave., has many headstones, yellow with
oil and age, inscribed with the names of many of the pioneer families
of Willmore City. Close to the east boundary is an oblong gray granite
slab in memory of W. E. Willmore, "founder of Willmore City, later
incorporated as Long Beach. Died Jan. 15, 1901. Age 57." Along
the north edge of the graveyard, a stone s throw from the rhythmic
pumps, is the "million dollar potters field." The cemetery constitutes
an "island" in the oil field, in which derricks are noticeably absent.
14. Don Juan Temple s ADOBE LOS CERRITOS, 4600 Virginia
Rd., built in 1844, was one of the first houses of the so-called Mon
terey type (see Architecture) constructed in southern California, and
remains the best-preserved example of its type in the Los Angeles
region. The white plastered adobe occupies a five-acre estate, the house
and garden walls encircling a large patio. The main unit, facing the
street, is 100 feet long. Along one end and the full length of the front
runs a two-story porch, with the balcony supported by squared timbers
and protected by the overhang of the tiled roof. In Temple s day brea
took the place of the variegated mission tiles that now cover the old
mansion. Two wings, 142 feet long, form the patio at the rear of
the house. An extensive Spanish garden in the manner of the pastor
superior s residence at San Gabriel (see Tour 8) surrounds the adobe.
LONG BEACH AND SIGNAL HILL 253
Many of the shrubs and trees planted by Temple still flourish in the
parklike grounds.
Temple, a pioneer Los Angeles merchant, imported lumber from
New England sawmills to build the house; later, it was for many years
the home of Jotham Bixby, of the pioneer Long Beach family, who
stocked the ranch with sheep. In 1930 Llewellyn Bixby rehabilitated
the house and improved the gardens; authentic restorations preserved
the original detail and atmosphere, which recalls the days of bullfights
in the adjoining corrals, unquartered beeves hanging ready for the bar
becue pits, fandangos in the courtyard, and all the gay color of the
fiestas that followed the horse races of the vaqueros.
Pasadena
Railroad Stations: Santa Fe R.R., 222 S. Raymond Ave.; Union Pacific R.R.,
205 W. Colorado St.; Southern Pacific R.R. ticket office, 148 E. Colorado St.;
Pacific Electric Ry., 61 N. Fair Oaks Ave.
Bus Stations: Union Bus Station, 48 S. Marengo Ave. for Greyhound Lines,
Union Pacific Trailways, Pasadena-Ocean Park Stage Line to Glendale, Holly
wood, the beaches, Motor Transit Line, Mt. Wilson Stage Line. Burlington
Trailways, Santa Fe Trailways, 533 E. Colorado St.
Busses and Streetcars: Pacific Electric Ry., fares 6^ and 10^ ; weekly and
monthly passes, good on all lines, at reduced rates. Oak Knoll and Short Line
cars from Pacific Electric Ry. Station, N. Fair Oaks Ave. and Union St. to 6th
and Main St. station in Los Angeles.
Taxis: Yellow Cab and Black and White, 144 W. Colorado St.; White Cab,
235 E. Del Mar St.; Green Cab, 86 N. Fair Oaks Ave.; Red Top, 144 W.
Colorado St. ; fares 10^, i mile, 5$ for each additional l /2 mile or fraction.
Traffic Regulations: California State statutes are basic. Watch for traffic
signs. All parking in streets prohibited between i and 6 a.m. Speed zones
posted. Left turns permitted in all zones except when prohibited by traffic
officer. Right turns permitted against signal, after full stop. U-turns in
business zones prohibited from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Streets and Numbers: Colorado St. dividing line for street pumbering, N. and
S. ; Fair Oaks Ave. for E. and W. ; avenues run N. and S., streets E. and W.
Boulevards and drives are designated.
Information Bureaus: Chamber of Commerce, N. Garfield Ave. and Union
St.; Information Booth, City Hall; Union Bus Station, 48 S. Marengo Ave.;
Pacific Electric Station, 61 N. Fair Oaks Ave.
Accommodations: More than 100 hotels and apartments with usual range of
prices. Well-appointed auto and trailer camps in eastern section of the city.
Churches: 112 churches, representing the leading denominations.
Theatres, Motion-Picture Houses, Amphitheatres: Community Playhouse, 39
S. El Molino Ave., local productions; Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St.,
lectures, opera, orchestral music; n motion-picture houses; Gold Shell, N.
Raymond Ave. and E. Holly St., civic concerts Sun. afternoons throughout
year (transferred indoors in inclement weather), local productions, drama,
light opera, pageants.
Radio Station: KPPC, 583 E. Colorado St.
Newspapers: Post, every morn.; Star-News, eve. except Sun.
Recreational Areas: Brookside Park, Rosemont Ave., between Scott PI. and
Seco St., 521 acres, with Rose Bowl, municipal golf courses, 3 baseball dia
monds, plunges, tennis courts, picnic grounds, children s playground; night
lighting.
Tournament Park, 22 acres, SW. cor. E. California St. and S. Wilson Ave.;
picnicking, baseball, and football.
254
PASADENA 255
Carmelita Park, Colorado St. and Orange Grove Ave. (open 10-5), 13 acre?
of rare plants and shrubs.
HI-NSC Park, z l / 2 acres, 3203 E. Colorado St., supervised playground; tennis
court, swings, baseball diamond, wading pool.
Central Park, 9^ acres, S. Fair Oaks and Del Mar Aves., swings and roque
courts lighted at night
La Pintoresca Park, 3 acres, X. Fair Oaks and Washington Aves., picnic
facilities, 4 horseshoe courts.
Lower Arroyo Park, %2 l / 2 acres, Linda Vista Bridge, S. to Busch Gardens;
large clubhouse, archery green and swings.
MacDonald Park, ij4 acres, N. Wilson Ave. and Mountain St., 6 swings and
2 horseshoe courts.
Memorial Park, 5^/2 acres, N. Raymond Ave. and Holly St., gas and wood
stoves, picnic tables for 200, amphitheatre seating 1,500.
Oak Grove Park, 334 acres, Oak Grove St. N. to Devil s Gate Dam; picnic
facilities for 900, cricket field.
Singer Park, 4 acres, St. John Ave. and California St., rose garden, benches.
Washington Park, 3 acres, N. El Molino Ave. and Washington St., picnic
facilities for 78, merry-go-round, 2 tightwires.
Friendship Forum, S. Arroyo Blvd. and La Loma Rd., wading pools, picnic
facilities.
La Casita del Arroyo (Sp., the little house of the gorge) (open; free; $5 for
use of parties or meetings, see Pasadena Park Board], 177 S. Arroyo Blvd.;
rustic stone-and-concrete clubhouse, large assembly room with fireplace, kitchen
and smaller rooms.
Annual Events: Pasadena Rose Tournament, Jan. i ; Rose Bowl football
game between a Pacific coast team of distinction and a Southern or Eastern
team of like caliber, Jan. i ; Pasadena Flower Show, Busch Gardens, 3 days in
Apr. and Oct. (adm. 40$} ; Pasadena Kennel Club Show, Civic Auditorium,
Feb. and July (adm. $/).
PASADENA (alt. 850; 1930 pop. 81,864), a quiet and conserva
tive residential city, lies 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles
at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains which stand like a great
Spanish comb behind it. To the south and east are southern Califor
nia s great citrus orchards. The curving Arroyo Seco (dry water
course) terminates it rather abruptly on the west. In this section is
Orange Grove Avenue, "Millionaires Row," with elaborate mansions
of heterogeneous design, a remnant of the 1890 $. Colorado Street, the
main thoroughfare, cuts across the city from east to west; at its inter
section with Fair Oaks Avenue is the small business district, given over
largely to smart shops. North of Colorado Street are large and often
pretentious houses, extensive estates centering on great mansions, and
many massive resort hotels set far back on broad green terraces. Al
though the per capita income of Pasadena tops that of any other city
in the country, shabby houses line dusty streets, many without sidewalks,
in a considerable area south of Colorado Street. In the spring of 1939
some 3,100 persons were on relief.
Dignified, reserved Pasadena is a city of many churches. Its well-bred
quiet is not broken by the whir of machinery. Indeed, many a retired
industrialist with a princely estate here has joined the local Chamber
of Commerce for the express purpose of preventing the development of
factories in the city or immediate vicinity. What little manufacture is
carried on is largely for the satisfaction of local needs. Staid and con-
256 LOS ANGELES
servative as it is, it is friendly to labor and allows notable latitude in the
exercise of rights of free speech and assembly; Upton Sinclair, veteran
advocate of socialism, founder of the Epic movement, has his home here.
The Tournament of Roses, inspired by the Carnival of Flowers
at Nice, France, breaks into Pasadena s traditional reserve each New
Year s Day. Instituted as a village festival to celebrate the midwinter
flowering season, the "Battle of Flowers" was first fought in 1890.
Celebrants bedecked horses and buggies with blossoms, had their pic
tures taken and sent to the folks back home, and so publicized the event
that Pasadena has been called "the town that roses built." The festi
val today is marked by a long parade of lavishly-decorated floats, each
bearing comely young girls, who pelt the onlookers with flowers. The
celebration was climaxed with a thundering chariot race up to 1902;
since 1916 the crowning feature has been the football game in the Rose
Bowl for the mythical national championship.
The site of Pasadena was once included in the old San Gabriel Mis
sion territory (see Tour 3) ; it was part of the land called Rancho San
Pascual, said to have been given by the mission fathers to their aged
housekeeper in 1826, but formally granted by Governor Figueroa in
l %35 to Juan Marine, a retired officer of the Spanish Army of Mexico,
who had meanwhile married the mission housekeeper. Marine s heir
squandered the land, and it was neglected by those to whom it passed
until in 1843 it became the property of Manuel Garfias, whose title
was validated by United States authorities after California s admission
to the Union in 1850. Presently the property was sold to Benjamin
D. ("Don Benito") Wilson, a Yankee who had come to Los Angeles
in 1841 with a party of trappers and was destined to leave his name
on many landmarks in the region a mountain, a lake, a trail, and an
avenue. Wilson and his associates passed deeds and options back and
forth among themselves with perplexing speed and intricacy. Finally,
in 1873, the unsold portion was divided between Wilson and Dr. John
S. Griffin, sometime chief medical officer of the U.S. Army in Cali
fornia.
Meantime, the California Colony of Indiana had been organized
in Indianapolis by Dr. Thomas B. Elliott and friends, who wished
"to get where life is easy." D. M. Berry, their agent, visited the
Rancho San Pascual, and finding it suitable, paid Dr. Griffin $25,000
for his 4,ooo-acre tract. Known first as Indiana Colony, it adopted in
1875 the name of Pasadena, coined from a Chippewa phrase usually
translated as "crown of the valley." Although more than half the
population spoke only Spanish, and stores closed for a two-hour midday
siesta, the community soon felt the invigorating spirit of the pioneers.
The schoolhouse became a meeting place and forum; a village literary
society was formed and issued a magazine, the Reservoir, containing
"talent, wit and doggerel in amusing lots." Communication with Los
Angeles was established by stage; in 1880 the first citrus fair was held,
and the following year a large packing plant was built.
By 1882 the town had a doctor, a photographer, a paper route,
Recreation
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
:CxCC*Xx<xXx
TOURNAMENT OF ROSES PARADE, PASADENA
BATHING BEAUTY PARADE, VENICE MARDI GRAS
SURF BOARD RIDING, HERMOSA BEACH
L. A. County Chamber of Commerce
BATHING SCENE AT LONG BEACH
Inman Company
iiia - r:
^La^*
L. A. Countv Chamber of Commerce
SAILING, ALAMITOS BAY
Santa Catalina Island
MARLIN SWORDFISH
(570 POUNDS), CATALINA
L. A. County Chamber of Commerce
ICE HOCKEY ON JACKSON LAKE, BIG PINES PARK
TOBOGGANING IN BIG PINES PARK
L. A. County Chamber of Commerce
L. A. County Chamber of Commerce
SKIING AT BIG PINES PARK
DOG SLED, ARROWHEAD LAKE
Lake Arrowhead Company
!> * , f
F. W. Carter
FISHING OFF THE PIER, SANTA MONICA
CARD PLAYERS IN THE PARK
Burton O. Bur*
^
Burton O. Kurt
BOWLING ON THE GREEN, EXPOSITION PARK, LOS ANGELES
TENNIS COURTS, LA CIENEGA PLAYGROUND, BEVERLY HILLS
City of Bevrrly Hills
Carroll Photo Service
HOLLYWOOD PARK RACE TRACK, INGLEWOOD
Kof>ec Photo Company
AIRVIEW, ROSE BOWL, PASADENA
PASADENA 257
and a community telephone in Barney Williams general store. A
weekly newspaper, the Chronicle, appeared in 1883; it was printed
on the presses of the Tunes-Mirror in Los Angeles, and each week
type-forms were hauled back and forth on horses, which in floodtime
almost disappeared in the mud of the Arroyo Seco.
About 1885 many speculators, attracted by the general southern
California boom, poured into Pasadena. Brass bands paraded the
streets advertising tracts for sale; houses sprang up in orange groves
and vineyards; social life was gay and often noisy with the popping
of champagne corks and the rattle of poker chips; South Orange Grove
Avenue was widened and many mansions built. Pasadena was incorpo
rated in 1886, in which year the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley
Railroad entered the city, precipitating a clash between Chinese and
white workers; the latter attacked and burned a Chinese laundry, to
the outrage of most citizens, who assembled in public meeting and
resolved that "no mob law be allowed in Pasadena."
By 1888 the boom had subsided. Subdivisions and citrus groves
were overrun with weeds. The population dwindled, bank deposits
shrank, and everyone appealed to the Board of Trade for aid. Gradu
ally prosperity returned ; an irrigation system was extended to sur
rounding dry lands. The early nineties saw the construction through
the city of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the Terminal
Railroad, and the beginning of construction of the cable railway up
Mount Lowe. The latter was advertised with the slogan "From
oranges to the snow." In 1891 Amos G. ("Father") Throop estab
lished the polytechnic school that later grew into the California In
stitute of Technology. By 1900 Pasadena had a population of 10,000.
The Mount Wilson Observatory (see Tour 1A) was established
in 1904. Civic improvements went steadily forward. Dr. Norman
Bridge, who had come to California for his health, remained to bestow
$300,000 on "Cal-Tech" for the erection of the Bridge Laboratory
of Physics and the Norman Bridge Library of Physics. In 1921 Henry
E. Huntington (see Tour 1) acquired Gainsborough s Blue Boy, the
Board of Trade changed its name to the Chamber of Commerce, and
building construction amounted to $7,000,000; Pasadena had definitely
arrived.
Building continued at a feverish pace throughout the 1920*5. Dur
ing the depression building construction slackened, but the city, for the
most part, continued its leisurely and affluent ways, encouraging the arts
and sciences, discouraging industry and commerce, still reflecting the
spirit of the settlers who came here "to get where life is easy."
POINTS OF INTEREST
The CIVIC CENTER lies along Garfield Ave., between Green
St. on the south and Walnut St. on the north. This wide section of
Garfield Ave. has broad strips of park along its west side.
I. The buff-colored CITY HALL (open; apply at Rm. 119 for adm.
258 LOS ANGELES
to tower), 100 N. Garfield Ave., designed by Bakewell and Brown,
dominates the Civic Center with its tower in four diminishing stages
with domes on the third and fourth. Wings project in the rear and
are connected by an arcade, forming a large patio. Small cupolas,
repeating the lines of the central dome, rise at the corners.
2. The PASADENA PUBLIC LIBRARY (open weekdays 9-9), 285
E. Walnut St., designed by Hunt and Chambers in 1925, is a long,
two-story, tile-roofed building of modified Spanish Colonial design.
Between forward wings is a forecourt surrounded by a loggia. In this
court are tall slender fan palms, three on each side of the main entrance.
The tile roof of the loggia is supported by frame columns reminiscent
of those in old Spanish buildings. Above the magnificent black metal
entrance doors are five arched windows. The library contains approxi
mately 200,000 volumes, many rare books and works of art, and a
collection of phonograph records for circulation.
3. ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL CHURCH (open), 132 N. Euclid
Ave., is of late English Gothic design with a low, heavy, battlemented
tower. A cloister of delicate stone tracery at the rear of a landscaped
courtyard leads to parish buildings. The interior is finished in luminous
brown oak lighted by windows of richly colored glass.
4. The GRACE NICHOLSON ART GALLERY (open weekdays
9-4; free), 30 N. Los Robles Ave., exhibits its collection of modern
American and European paintings and art objects in a reproduction of
a modern Chinese house, as much an exhibition piece as anything in it.
The heavily ornamented roof is of green enameled pantiles from an
old temple near Peking, w T ith grotesque terra-cotta dogs and dragons
at the points of the roof. On each side of the main entrance a stone
arch with tracery is a great marble dog of the Ming dynasty, also
brought from near Peking.
5. The CIVIC AUDITORIUM (open Wed. 2-4), 300 E. Green
St., a two-story concrete building with Italian Renaissance decorative
motifs designed by Bergstrom, Bennett, and Haskell, has strong hori
zontal lines emphasized by a low-pitched red tile hip roof with a wide
overhang at the eaves. Five upper-story windows in blind arches are
decorated at the top with scroll patterns on blue tile.
Inside the auditorium, running entirely around the walls, is a series
of panels on mythological Greek subjects adapted from drawings by
Raphael, done with cameo effect on a brick-red ground. Frescoes on
upper walls and ceiling carry out the theme of the panels. All were
done by John B. Smeraldi.
6. The PASADENA COMMUNITY PLAYHOUSE (open 9-4,
except during Sat. matinees), 37 S. El Molino Ave., is housed in white
plaster buildings around a rough-flagged court. Gilmor Brown, mana
ger of the present playhouse, brought a company of professional players
to the old Savoy Theatre in 1916, and after an unprofitable season
appealed to Pasadena s civic leaders to assist in reviving the drama. An
advisory committee of citizens assisted in organizing in 1918 the Pasa
dena Community Playhouse Association as a non-profit corporation;
POINTS OF
1. City Hall
2. Public Library
3. All Saints Episcopal Church
4. Grace Nicholson Art Gallery
5. Civic Auditorium
6. Pasadena Community Play
house
7. California Institute of Tech
nology
8. Huntington Hotel
! 9- The Old Mill
INTEREST
10. Busch Gardens
11. Colorado Street Bridge
i 2. Memorial Flagpole
13. California Graduate School of
Design
14. La Miniatura
15. Rose Bowl
1 6. Devil s Gate Dam
17. St. Elizabeth Catholic Church
1 8. Westminster Presbyterian
Church
26O LOS ANGELES
the present theatre was erected in 1924-25. The playhouse has a wide
repertoire and claims the distinction of having produced all of Shake
speare s plays. A Midsummer Dramatic Festival has been an annual
event since 1935. More than 80 plays have had national or world
premieres here. Casts are chosen from among 1,000 associated players
and from the 200 students in the playhouse s School of the Theatre,
founded in 1928, which conducts a Laboratory Theatre for the staging
of plays by new authors.
7. The CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, 1201
E. California St., had its beginnings in a small vocational training
school called Throop Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1891 by Amos
G. Throop, onetime mayor of Pasadena. In 1910 it was moved to the
present campus and became the Throop College of Technology, the only
institution west of the Mississippi devoted exclusively to the training of
engineers. During the next decade the school enlisted the interest of
several nationally known scientists and educators, and the financial aid
of businessmen and philanthropists. In 1920 an executive council was
formed, and its chairmanship was assumed by Dr. Robert A. Millikan,
who is still president of the institute. In later years the name was
changed to the California Institute of Technology. Contributors to the
institute s endowment have included the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and
Guggenheim foundations. The Carnegie Institution of Washington
helps to maintain the Seismological Research Laboratory in the San
Rafael Hills, some three miles from the campus. The General Educa
tional Board, an agency of the Rockefeller Foundation, supplied funds
for the erection of the institute s great 2OO-inch telescope and astrophys-
ical observatory on Palomar Mountain in San Diego County.
The enrollment is limited to approximately 800 by scholarship
standards. The teaching staff of 2OO includes men of national and
international reputation in their respective fields who were attracted
to "Cal-Tech" principally by the opportunities for research. Dr. Mil
likan, director of the college s physics laboratory, won the 1923 Nobel
award in physics for his discoveries in cosmic ray radiation ; Dr. Thomas
Hunt Morgan, director of the biological division, won a Nobel prize
in 1923 for his studies in genetics; and Dr. Carl David Anderson, a
graduate, was awarded the 1936 Nobel prize in physics for his dis
covery of the positron.
The older buildings on the 32-acre campus are Mediterranean in
style; the newer buildings are of functional design with plain geometri
cal ornamentation, and are connected by loggias. To the left of the
main entrance, a wide approach from Wilson Avenue, are the KERCK-
HOFF BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES, a long, low, cream-colored concrete
unit with an arcaded loggia along the front. The institute s marine
station at Corona del Mar supplies specimens for research work arid
laboratory classes. A loacre farm for studies in plant genetics is
maintained at Arcadia. Behind the MUDD and the ARMS GEOLOGICAL
LABORATORIES (R), which resemble the biological laboratories, is the
ASTROPHYSICS LABORATORY, whose staff works closely with those of
u a rt ^
the Palomar Mountain Observatory and the Mount Wilson Observa
tory (see Tour 1A}. Adjoining the Astrophysics Laboratory on the
west is CULBERTSON HALL, an auditorium.
Beyond the biological and geological laboratory groups, the approach
broadens into a large plaza. The GATES AND CRELLIN CHEMICAL
LABORATORY group (L) contains photographic dark-rooms, a glass-
blowing room, instrument and carpenter shops, and the chemistry li
brary. The NORMAN BRIDGE LABORATORY OF PHYSICS (R) has many
special research laboratories, the general institute library, the engineer
ing library, and the library of physics.
THROOP HALL, in the center of the campus facing west, houses the
administration offices and the engineering department. It follows the
design of the Carmel Mission near Monterey, having a low central
tower, and two lesser towers with open-arched imitation belfries.
DABNEY HALL OF THE HUMANITIES, left of Throop Hall, is a
three-story L-shaped building. Right of Throop Hall, in the east wing
of another L-shaped building, is the KELLOGG LABORATORY OF RADIA
TION, equipped for high-potential X-ray work; it contains the famous
"atom smasher," Dr. C. C. Lauritsen s high-potential X-ray tube. The
HIGH-POTENTIAL RESEARCH LABORATORY is the main unit of this
building. A sculpture over the door represents a dynamo tended by two
Titans. This laboratory is equipped for the study of problems of elec
trical transmission at high potentials, and problems in the structure of
matter and the nature of radiation. To the east is the ASTROPHYSICS
MACHINE SHOP, where new astronomical instruments are being de
veloped for use in the Palomar Mountain Observatory. In this
building machines for grinding the 2OO-inch reflector for the giant tele
scope were built. The OPTICAL SHOP, east of the Astrophysics Ma
chine Shop, has equipment for grinding the telescope mirror, and its
accessory mirrors.
The GUGGENHEIM AERONAUTICAL LABORATORY, a plain three-
story building north of the Astrophysics Machine Shop, contains a 10-
foot high-speed wind tunnel, an aerodynamics department with several
small wind tunnels and auxiliary apparatus, a woodshop large enough
for the building of complete airplanes, and the aeronautical library.
TOURNAMENT PARK (free), SW corner of E. California St.
and S. Wilson Ave., is a large shady common with athletic fields and
picnic facilities; here the Tournament of Roses parade ends each New
Year s Day. The afternoon sports of the Rose Tournament were held
here every year from 1890 to 1923, the year in which the Rose Bowl
was completed.
8. The HUNTINGTON HOTEL, intersection of Oak Knoll and
Wentworth Aves., from which it is reached by a long driveway, is a
rambling six-story building built in 1906 by the late Henry E. Hunting-
ton (see Pueblo to Metropolis). At the rear of the hotel is the slender,
covered PICTURE BRIDGE, hung with wistaria, spanning a garden with
lily ponds and a swimming pool ; within the bridge are hung paintings
of California scenery.
262 LOS ANGELES
9. The OLD MILL (private}, 1120 Old Mill Rd., a rough vine-
mantled adobe on a hillside under a few lacy shade trees, is a much
restored and renovated mill built first under the direction of Father
Zalvidea of the San Gabriel Mission in 1812. The upper part of the
building housed the two grinding stones; a large lower room on the
east side was divided into two wheel chambers, through which water
ran, to be discharged through two large arches still seen in the lower
east wall. The mill has been twice restored, but the basic construction,
much of the old adobe, many of the roof tiles, and parts of the old brick
floor remain. The reveals of door and windows still bear the original
oxblood coloring. A hitching-block made of two old millstones stands
in the front yard.
The ARROYO SECO (dry watercourse) is a wide-spreading
gorge choked with blue-green shrubbery, which runs from the San
Gabriel Mountains along the base of the San Rafael Hills to the Los
Angeles River in Los Angeles. A narrow stream, dry in summer but
swollen occasionally to flood proportions in the winter rainy season,
twists along the arroyo bottom. Parts of the arroyo have been made
into public parks, and it is proposed to improve the entire area. Local
laws protect wild life along the arroyo, and birds abound here.
10. The BUSCH GARDENS (open 9-5; adults 25^ children ioj),
959 S. Arroyo Blvd., lie along the edge of the arroyo and descend its
banks to a lake graced by white swans and fed by rills that run down
the slope over many miniature waterfalls. Scattered about the gardens
are groups of terra-cotta figures representing scenes from such tales
as Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella. The
gardens, once part of the grounds surrounding the mansion of Adolphus
Busch (1830-1913), St. Louis brewer, are now administered by Pasa
dena Post No. 13, of the American Legion, which uses admission fees
to maintain its disabled veterans fund.
n. The COLORADO STREET BRIDGE sweeps into Pasadena
from the west in a majestic curve over the Arroyo Seco. It was not
built on a curve for purely ornamental purposes; at this point no suit
able bedrock footings could be found for the construction of a straight
bridge. In 1937 the city stretched a fence topped with barbed wire
along the balustrade, thus ending the long series of deaths due to jumps
from the high parapet into the arroyo that in the 1920*8 led to the
structure s being known as "Suicide Bridge."
12. The MEMORIAL FLAGPOLE, W. Colorado St. and Orange
Grove Ave., erected in 1927, commemorates Pasadena s World War
dead. The flagstaff, more than 100 feet high, rises from a base bearing
bronze World War figures sculptured in high relief.
CARMELITA GARDEN (free), 425 W. Colorado St., now a
somewhat faded spot with lawn, trees and shrubs, was once the home
garden of Dr. Ezra Slocum Carr (1818-1894), author and educator.
John Muir brought to the garden many of the trees and shrubs grow
ing here.
13. On the east end of the garden is the CALIFORNIA GRADU-
1* A S A D I- W A
ATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN (open Mon. to Fri. 9-4, Sat. 9-12;
free lectures and exhibitions at irregular intervals], which is housed
in a two-story multigabled frame building. The school teaches modern
industrial design and awards the degree of Master of Arts.
A 4,52O-seat grandstand, facing Colorado Street, is set up on the
south side of Carmelita Garden every year in preparation for the
annual Tournament of Roses parade on New Year s Day. The of
ficial reviewing stand and the starting point of the parade are at the
nearby intersection of Colorado Street and Orange Grove Avenue.
Each year the stands are taken apart after the parade and the pieces
stored.
14. LA MINIATURA, 645 Prospect Crescent, a studio-residence
built for Mrs. George Madison Millard in 1923, was the first of the
concrete-block houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The architect
describes the house as a "genuine expression of California in terms of
modern industry and American life ... an interpretation of her
[Mrs. Millard s] career as a book collector, something that belongs to
the ground on which it stands."
The two-story house, framed by eucalyptus trees, is reflected in a
pool in the sunken gardens. The house has double walls to provide
insulation against heat, cold, dampness, and fire. The concrete bricks
are stamped with a radial cross design which here and there becomes
fenestration.
BROOKSIDE PARK, Arroyo Seco between Holly St. and Devil s
Gate Dam, is a 521 -acre playground containing the Rose Bowl and the
municipal golf courses. The recreational section, lighted at night, in
cludes plunges, tennis courts, picnic grounds, baseball fields, and a
children s playground, tavern, and bandstand. The grounds are planted
to live oak, sycamore, and other native trees and shrubbery. Cut into
the canyon walls are many hiking and bridle trails, rock stairways, and
secluded nooks with stone benches.
15. The ROSE BOWL (open free when not in use), north of the
junction of Arroyo Blvd. and Salvia Canyon Rd., is the stadium in
which the annual New Year s Day football game is played, the con
cluding event of the Tournament of Roses. The spacious grounds
about the bowl, enclosed within a high steel fence, are planted to a
great variety of roses and green shrubbery. The bowl, built in 1922,
seats 85,000 and is illuminated with floodlights for night performances.
Commencement exercises of the Pasadena city schools, local football and
baseball games, political rallies, and other events are held here.
16. DEVIL S GATE DAM, across the top of which La Canada
Verdugo Road passes, is a concrete structure built across the Arroyo
Seco channel at Devil s Gate, a narrow gap in a spur of the San Rafael
Hills which takes its name from a natural rock sculpture on the canyon
wall suggesting a devil s head. The dam, a unit of the Los Angeles
County flood control projects, was built in 1920 to control the heavy
seasonal run-off from the San Gabriel Mountains.
CHRISTMAS TREE LANE (lighted 5-10 p.m. Christmas Eve
264 LOS ANGELES
to New Years night], is a double row of deodar trees stretching for
more than a mile along Santa Rosa Ave., from Woodbury Rd. north to
Foothill Blvd. At night, during the Christmas holidays, the trees are
illuminated with colored lights, and draw huge throngs of spectators.
While the trees are illuminated, the cars of sightseers proceed three or
four abreast with their lights off. Planted about 1888, the tall trees
are mature and almost uniform in height.
17. The ST. ELIZABETH CATHOLIC CHURCH (open), NW.
corner Woodbury Rd. and N. Lake Ave., is a white stucco building of
medieval Spanish design with California mission features. A plain
square tower rising above the red tile roof is topped with an open-
arched belfry. Above the wide arched doorway is a baroque niche
with an image of St. Elizabeth.
Inside, at the back of the altar, a screen of baroque design frames
a painting of St. Elizabeth, and against the wall at each side of the
sanctuary are large statues, one of St. Joseph, and the other of St.
Francis of Assisi. The sculptured figure of Jesus stands in front of
the sanctuary. These figures and the stations of the cross along the
side walls of the nave are by woodcarvers of Oberammergau, Ger
many.
1 8. The WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (adm.
by arrangement), 1757 N. Lake Ave., is of modified French Gothic
design. Tall, gray, severe, it towers in strong perpendicular lines above
its parish buildings on landscaped grounds that cover a city block.
Its single tower, square and buttressed, is surmounted with an octagonal
belfry pierced by narrow lancet arches. The church and its buildings
are of concrete, with gray stone facing; the roofs are of dark slate.
Above the entrance is a rose window 1 6 feet in diameter.
The vault over the nave, immensely high, long, and narrow, is a
rich rust-red with small gold figures. The blue-vaulted apse, also high
and narrow, has a tall stained glass window. The brilliant colors of
great circular windows, one above the entrance and one at each end
of the transept, are best seen from the sanctuary.
Santa Monica
Railroad Stations: Connections by Pacific Electric Ry. interurban, and Los
Angeles Motor Coach Co. with trunk railroads. Offices: Union Pacific, 309
Santa Monica Blvd.; Southern Pacific, 416 Santa Monica Blvd. and 3011
Trolleyway; Santa Fe, 312 Santa Monica Blvd.
Interurban Stations: Pacific Electric Ry. Station, 1504 Ocean Ave. Fare
within city limits, 6; to Los Angeles, 20^.
Bus Service, Local and Interurban: Santa Monica Municipal Bus Line, ter
minal at 1613 Lincoln Blvd.; Bay Cities Transit Co., station at 1726 4th St.,
local and to bay cities. Los Angeles Motor Coach Co., from Wilshire Blvd.
and Ocean Ave. to 5th and Hill Sts., Los Angeles, via Wilshire. Pacific
Greyhound Lines (through traffic only), station at 1349 4th St. Minimum
fare, 6.
Airport: Clover Field Municipal Airport, 3300 Ocean Ave., registered with
U.S. Government as A. I. A. airport. Sightseeing flights over Bay District.
Charter planes available.
Taxis: Mostly privately owned, yellow cabs, H4C Santa Monica Blvd.
Rates 25<J up.
Piers: Municipal Pier, foot of Colorado Ave.; Lick Pier, foot of Marine St.;
Dome Pier, foot of Ashland Ave. Water taxis to deep-sea fishing.
Traffic Regulations: Uniform traffic ordinances for California cities, as com
piled by the Automobile Club of Southern California, prevail.
Information Bureaus: Chamber of Commerce, Broadway and 4th St.; City
Publicity Commission, City Hall, 4th St. and Santa Monica Blvd.; Southern
California Automobile Club, 1810 Ocean Ave.
Streets and Numbers: The numbered streets, from 2nd to 26th, and name
streets from Princeton to Franklin, run N. and S. Principal avenues and
boulevards run E. and W. City boundaries are: N., San Vicente Blvd.; S.,
Commonwealth Ave.; E., Centinela Ave.; W., Pacific Ocean. Street arrange
ment somewhat irregular in Ocean Park section, due to number of short
streets between shore line and Pacific Electric tracks.
Hotels and Apartment Houses: 43 hotels and 130 apartment houses.
Theatres, Concert Halls, and Amphitheatre: 5 modern movie theatres. Music
halls include Convention Hall on Santa Monica Pier, and auditorium of Santa
Monica Junior College, 7th St. and Pennsylvania Ave.
Art Galleries: Public Library, Santa Monica Blvd. and 5th St.
Schools: i evening school, i technical, i junior college, i high, 2 junior highs,
8 elementary, 8 kindergartens.
Newspapers: Evening Outlook, daily, except Sun.
Parks, Playgrounds, Picnic Grounds: Palisades Park, from Adelaide Dr. to
Municipal Pier, 21 acres on bluff overlooking ocean. Lincoln Park, Lincoln
and Wilshire Blvds. ; Douglas Park, near Wilshire Blvd. and 25th Sts., with
fly-casting pool; and Clover Field, 100 acres, largest of community s recreation
spots.
Numerous other play centers on sands along ocean front. Parks generously
equipped with facilities for outdoor games and picnics.
Boating and Yachting: Stone breakwater in bay provides anchorage for more
than 300 boats.
265
LOS ANGELES
Swimming: City owns and maintains i mile of public beach with police and
lifeguard service throughout year.
Golf: i8-hole course at Clover Field.
Tennis: Lincoln Park, scene of Dudley Cup annual tennis tournament, Douglas
Park, and Clover Field.
SANTA MONICA (79 alt., 53,500 pop.), a city and beach resort
independent of Los Angeles on crescent-shaped Santa Monica Bay,
lies 15 miles west of downtown Los Angeles on the coastal plain that
slopes gently southward from the base of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Roughly rectangular in shape, some eight square miles in extent, it is
encompassed on three sides by Los Angeles, and on the fourth faces the
Pacific Ocean. Santa Monica has an air of small town ease and com
fort, combined with the holiday spirit of a shore resort.
Ocean Park, as the southern section of the city is known, is "the
Coney Island of the West," with roller coasters, shooting galleries,
shoot-the-chutes, and similar appurtenances. Back from the beach are
some slum-like streets, but most are lined with the neat small houses
of workers in the neighboring industrial plants, the largest of which is
the vast Douglas Aircraft Company Plant.
More characteristic of the city is the shore line north from Ocean
Park to Santa Monica Canyon. Palisades Park, a narrow attractive
strip of greenery, follows the edge of the cliffs and overlooks large
beach clubs and elaborate "cottages," some with private swimming
pools; in the bay appears the Municipal Pier, with a long breakwater
beyond it, providing a sheltered haven for sail and motor craft. Santa
Monica s principal residential district stretches back from Palisades
Park for several miles, a section of substantial and attractive houses,
graced with lawns, shrubs, hedges, and a profusion of flower beds.
Except for exotic trees bordering the streets, it might be the comfort
able, well-to-do residential section of any medium-sized midwestern
city. Farther north, near Santa Monica Canyon, houses and gardens
become mansions and estates, spreading along the water-front and
into the wooded foothills within and beyond the city.
Santa Monica was so named, according to one story, because Father
Juan Crespi, while on a journey in 1769, camped near the present site
of the city in a grove of sycamores on May 4, Saint Monica s Day.
Another tale has it that Father Crespi, Father Gomez, and two sol
diers, searching for a trail up the coast during Portola s stay in Yang-na
(Los Angeles), slaked their thirst at two springs they found in a grove
of sycamores and named the Pools of Santa Monica. The springs and
grove, now gone, were situated close to the eastern edge of the city,
near the present Sawtelle Soldiers Home (see Beverly Hills).
Provisional grants were made to "the place called Santa Monica"
as early as 1827, but the region was only slightly developed for many
years, though the sycamores were a favorite camping spot for parties
from Los Angeles. In 1871 a Los Angeles entrepreneur erected a big
tent which housed 20 to 30 families during the week and on Saturday
nights was turned into a dance hall. Its popularity led in 1872 to the
building of a two-story hotel, with eight rooms. "Come and enjoy
yourself," the owner advertised, "a week spent at the beach will add
10 years to your life."
In that same year Colonel Robert S. Baker of San Francisco, a
forty-niner, paid $54,000 for the Sepulveda ranch, one of the large
early land grants; he also acquired two adjoining ranches and stocked
all with sheep. Colonel Baker appreciated the value of the water
front as a townsite; lacking sufficient capital, he interested English
capitalists in 1874 and newspapers announced that a wharf and railroad
were to be built and the town was to be called Truxton, but nothing
happened. In January 1875 Senator John P. Jones of Nevada pur
chased a two-thirds interest in the Baker ranch; construction of a
wharf and of a railroad to Los Angeles was begun; a town was laid
out, and the survey plat of "Santa Monica, Cal." was filed in the office
of the county recorder at Los Angeles on July 10, 1875. Home
builders and speculators streamed in from San Francisco by boat, from
Los Angeles by stage, for a widely advertised auction of lots by Senator
Jones s factotum, Thomas Fitch, a Los Angeles newspaperman. The
day was hot; there was no shade; horses, wagons, buggies, and stage
coaches raised clouds of dust, but Fitch s eloquence easily vaulted these
hurdles.
"At I o clock," Fitch thundered, "we will sell at public outcry to
the highest bidder the Pacific Ocean, draped with a western sky of
scarlet and gold; we will sell a bay ... a southern horizon ... a
frostless, bracing, warm yet unlanguid air ... odored \vith the breath
of flowers. The purchaser of this job lot of climate and scenery will
be presented with a deed of land 50 by 150 feet. The title to the ocean
and the sunset, the hills and the clouds, the breath of the life-giving
ozone, and the song of birds, is guaranteed by the beneficent God. . . ."
The first lot brought $300. Within a few months the Santa
Monica Outlook began publication, and the first train pulled out of
Santa Monica for Los Angeles. On November 24, 18-75, the Outlook
reported, "Santa Monica continues to advance. We now have a wharf
where the largest Panama steamers have landed . . . t\vo hotels, one
handsome clubhouse . . . two private schools and in a short time we
shall have two churches and a public school." Santa Monicans en
visaged their town as the great port of southern California, but this
hope was blighted in 1876 when the Southern Pacific Railroad was
completed to Los Angeles, having been given as a bonus the narrow-
gauge railroad that ran from Los Angeles to San Pedro. A rate war
began, and within a year Senator Jones was forced to sell his Los
Angeles and Independence road to the Southern Pacific, which imme
diately raised freight rates and diverted business to San Pedro.
Hard times fell on Santa Monica. An epidemic of smallpox fol
lowed a severe drought that ruined local sheepmen. The population
began to dwindle. Baker and Jones strove to make a resort out of the
town during the next two years but were not very successful. The
FEDERAL WRITERS PROJECT LOS ANGELES CALIF.
POINTS
1. Miles Memorial Playhouse 4. La Monica Building
2. Public Library Municipal Aquarium
3. Camera Obscura 5. City Hall
SANTA
MONICA
TEREST
(>. Memorial Open Air Theatre
7. St. Anne s Chapel
8. Douglas Aircraft Co. Plant
9. Municipal Auditorium
27O LOS ANGELES
1880 census revealed a population of only 417. Lots bought for hun
dreds of dollars sold for as little as 10 cents down.
The village revived with the boom in the late i88o s, and on the
heels of the boom came a change in the attitude of the Southern
Pacific, now headed by Collis P. Huntington, which built a large wharf
here in 1891-92 and was soon engaged in a bitter five-year fight with
those who favored San Pedro as a harbor (see Pueblo To Meropolis).
Millions of dollars were spent in the struggle, which finally reached
the floor of the Congress, where the Southern Pacific was defeated
and Santa Monica s second hope of becoming a large port was blasted.
Almost immediately a campaign was started to advertise Santa
Monica as a residential and resort community. In 1892 the Santa Fe
and Santa Monica Railroad completed its line from Los Angeles to
Ocean Park, then known as South Santa Monica, and built a station,
an amusement pavilion, cement promenades along the beach, and adver
tised excursions to "the Coney Island of the Pacific." Golf links and
race tracks were laid out to attract more visitors. Thousands came to
watch the Santa Monica automobile road races held between 1909 and
1916. By 1910 the city s population approached 8,000, and during
the next decade it grew steadily.
But it was during the booming 1920*5 that Santa Monica began
to assume its present metropolitan proportions. Many of the easterners
and middle westerners who poured into California during that period
were attracted by the city s quiet residential atmosphere; they built
small houses and settled down as year round residents. Movie stars,
lured by its sea breezes within commuting distance of Hollywood and
Beverly Hills, built elaborate summer houses on the beach. The com
ing of the Douglas Aircraft Company and its rapid growth freed the
city from sole dependency upon its tourist and vacationist trade. Never
theless, Santa Monica keeps its resort fences in good repair, and even
builds new ones: its "Coney Island" is still packing in the nickel-and-
dime week-end trade; and the completion of the breakwater in 1932
gave it a fine harbor and a firmer grip on the boat-owning class.
POINTS OF INTEREST
LINCOLN PARK, Wilshire and Lincoln Blvds., a five-acre tract,
has a shaded picnic ground and a children s playground.
1. In the park is the MILES MEMORIAL PLAYHOUSE, which
stands on the Lincoln Boulevard side of the park among eucalyptus
trees and palms. The playhouse is of modernized mission architecture.
It was built with funds left to the city in 1925 by James Euclid Miles.
It is used for community social, recreational and dramatic events.
2. The SANTA MONICA PUBLIC LIBRARY (open weekdays,
g-$ ; limited service Sun., holidays}, 5th St. and Santa Monica Blvd., is
a two-story H-shaped concrete building of Spanish Renaissance design.
The buff-colored exterior is embellished with dark terra-cotta ornament
around the doors and windows. In the main reading room are murals
S A N T A M O N I C A 2J1
In S. MacDonald Wright depicting the evolution of literature, art,
and science since the dawn of civilization.
PALISADES PARK is a narrow strip of 26 acres along the high
bluffs that fringe the ocean between Colorado Ave. and Inspiration
Point. Palm and pepper trees line the Ocean Avenue side; trees and
shrubbery in the park have been grouped to allow unobstructed views
of the sea. A rustic wood and iron fence skirts the face of the preci
pice, down which narrow stairs with rustic rails wind to the strand.
3. The CAMERA OBSCURA (open 9:30-5:30; free), housed in a
two-story, shingled structure at the foot of Broadway, was built more
than 50 years ago. In summer some 600 persons a day visit the small
dark chamber where scenes caught by the revolving lenses, prisms, and
mirrors on top of the building are projected in color on a movable,
canvas-covered table top.
The YACHT HARBOR, at the foot of Broadway, a municipally
operated haven for small pleasure craft, is protected by a 2,ooofoot
stone BREAKWATER, completed in 1934 at a cost of $700,000, which
parallels the shore 600 feet beyond the end of the pier.
The MUNICIPAL PIER, extending 1,680 feet seaward from the
foot of Colorado Ave., is the center of Santa Monica s stillwater
angling, and boating and yachting activities. It forms the southeastern
boundary of the yacht harbor. From the seaward end of the pier
water taxis (rates vary) carry passengers to offshore fishing barges.
4. At the end of La Monica Pier, left of the Municipal Pier, is the
LA MONICA BUILDING, a concrete and stucco structure housing
the Life Guard Service, Municipal Aquarium, and a skating rink.
Powerboat agencies, fish stores, restaurants, and miscellaneous amuse
ment concessions wall the north side of the pier.
The MUNICIPAL AQUARIUM (open 9-5; free), in the La Monica
Building, exhibits mounted and living specimens of sea life peculiar to
the waters of southern California. The collection was started as a
hobby in 1935 by members of the Santa Monica Lifeguard Service, who
have been put in charge of the enlarged aquarium.
5. The new CITY HALL, Main St., between Olympic and Pico
Blvds., was begun in March 1939, as the first municipal unit of a
proposed Civic Center midway between the northern and southern
sections of the city. The H-shaped two-story building is of reinforced
concrete construction. Above the Main St. facade a square central
section rises in a low set-back beyond the roof line. The dark exterior
trim of a squat, square-shaped unit above the central setback is in sharp
contrast to the whiteness of the structure as a whole. The building
houses all departments of city government.
6. The MEMORIAL OPEN AIR THEATRE, on the grounds of
the Santa Monica High School, Pico Blvd. and 4th St., built in 1920,
was dedicated the following year to the Santa Monica High School
boya who saw service during the World War. The 3,ooo-seat concrete
amphitheatre is used for graduation exercises, fiestas, and various public
gatherings.
272 LOS ANGELES
7. ST. ANNE S CHAPEL, NW. corner Colorado Ave. and 2Oth St.,
a low, gabled cruciform structure with clapboard walls and shingle
roof, topped with a small bell tower, is locally famed as the repository
of a relic of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary. The chapel
was built in 1908 by Father Patrick Hawe. In 1913 the archbishop of
Quebec, Canada, sent an authenticated fingerbone of St. Anne from the
shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre, near Quebec, and a rustic rockery for it
was built on the chapel grounds. During the annual novena, which
precedes St. Anne s Day, July 26, several hundred people daily attend
the outdoor services held near the shrine.
DOUGLAS PARK is bounded by Wilshire Blvd. and California
Ave., 25th St. and Chelsea Ave. It is a four-acre recreational area of
diversified appeal that was named for Donald Wills Douglas, airplane
manufacturer, who built the first Douglas planes in an abandoned
motion-picture studio that formerly stood on the site. Facilities include
one of the few fly-casting pools in southern California, a wading pool,
children s playground, and tennis courts.
The CLOVER FIELD AIRPORT, bounded by Ocean Park and
Centinela Blvds., 27th and Dewey Sts., one of the first municipal air
ports in the United States, was established in 1926; the 75-acre airport
adjoins the loo-acre MUNICIPAL GOLF COURSE AND RECREATION
CENTER, acquired at the same time.
8. The main DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT COMPANY PLANT, 3400
Ocean Park Blvd., a three-story white concrete building, covers 18
acres, with almost 1,000,000 square feet of floor space. Adjoining it
on the east is the new hangar-shaped ASSEMBLY BUILDING. Here are
built the giant Douglas transport ships the DC-3, a 2i-passenger day
and night plane; the DST, a 14-passenger sky sleeper; the huge DC-4
skyliner, weighing 65,000 pounds gross, with a wingspread of 139 feet;
bombers and torpedo carriers for the U.S. Army and Navy, and various
foreign governments. The Northrop Division plant at El Segundo
(see Tour 5) is a subsidiary.
Airplanes were formerly built on a workbench, but manufacturers
have adopted the assembly-line methods of the automobile builders.
The Douglas company makes most of the parts for its planes in its
Santa Monica factory, using a high-speed hydraulic press which weighs
840,000 pounds and is one of the most powerful of its kind. The
intricate processes and countless tests involved in the evolution of a
new model are revealed in the creation of the Douglas Sky Sleeper
DST. In December 1934, engineering projections, based on the de
signs of previous models, were started. Four hundred engineers and
draftsmen made some 3,500 drawings of each screw and bolt, the
detail of every unit. Once the basic design was completed, a model,
one-eleventh the size of the proposed ship, was built. Engineers then
made 300 tests of the model in a 2OO-mile-an-hour wind tunnel at the
California Institute of Technology (see Pasadena}. The construction
of the full-size wooden model for determining the most practical seating
and storage arrangements required 15,000 work hours, and included
SANTA MONICA 273
tests of the reactions of air passengers to color. The construction and
testing of the wooden model cost $400,000. Shaping of steel and
duralumin parts on the high-speed hydraulic presses followed, each unit
being subjected to load, bending, and torque tests. On December 17,
!935> a year after the first plans had been drawn, the completed DST
rolled off the production line, and was given a series of severe air tests
before being pronounced ready for production in quantity.
OCEAN PARK, extending along the ocean for several blocks on
either side of Ashland Avenue, is Santa Monica s amusement district,
"the Coney Island of the West," with roller coasters, shoot-the-chutes,
skating rinks, carrousels, hot-dog stands, and carnival booths.
9. The MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM, foot of Ashland Ave., rests
on a pier adjoining Dome Pier. Its arcaded stucco facade overlooks a
block-wide, concrete-paved plaza with a bandstand shell in the center.
In the plaza, seating 5,000, summer concerts are given by the Santa
Monica Municipal Band; the auditorium, seating 1,200, is used for
community educational and cultural affairs.
DOME PIER, foot of Pier Ave., the center of Ocean Park s
so-called "Fun Zone," is lined almost solidly with concession booths
and cafes. Northwest of it stretches the sloping strand of the Santa
Monica MUNICIPAL BEACH, which attracts summer holiday crowds ot
more than 100,000 persons.
PART IV
The Country Around Los Angeles
Tour I
TO ARROWHEAD
Los Angeles San Marino Arcadia Monrovia Azusa Claremont
Upland San Bernardino Arrowhead Hot Springs Lake Arrow
head Big Bear Lake Pine Knot Village, 118.5 m. ; N. Main St.,
Macy St., Mission Rd., Huntington Dr., N., US 66, State 18.
Concrete or asphalt-concrete paved roadbed throughout; four lanes between
Los Angeles and San Bernardino, two lanes between San Bernardino and Pine
Knot Village.
Pacific Electric Ry. and Santa Fe Ry. parallel route between Los An
geles and San Bernardino.
All types of accommodations; year-round resorts in mountains; summer
and winter sports camps; permission to camp in forest reserve outside
public camping places issued by U.S. Forest Rangers stations campers
must have shovel and ax.
This route crosses the San Gabriel Valley, a region of extensive
citrus groves, vineyards, and truck farms cut by rock- and gravel-strewn
washes and containing many attractive little towns. When this valley
was owned by Mission San Gabriel Arcangel (see Tour 3), mission-
trained Indians tended great herds of sheep, cattle and horses; tilled
cornfields, and tended orchards here. When the power of the missions
was curtailed (see Pueblo to Metropolis), San Gabriel Valley was
broken into Ranchos El Rincon de San Pascual, Santa Anita, and
others. After California had come under American rule, Yankees,
some of them marrying into native families, acquired much of the land
and began developing the country. Most of their heirs dissipated their
wealth, and the great ranchos were divided among small holders.
North of the valley the twisting but well-paved road rapidly ascends
the San Bernardino Mountains, reaching an elevation of more than a
mile and a quarter. High in the pine-and fir-clothed San Bernardino
National Forest are three popular recreational resorts luxurious
Arrowhead, popular-priced Big Bear, and undeveloped Baldwin.
From the CITY HALL, m., the route runs north on Main Street
to Macy Street; R. on Macy to Mission Road; L. on Mission Road
to Huntington Drive North ; L. on Huntington Drive North.
In SOUTH PASADENA, 7 ///. (600 alt.. 14,356 pop.) (see Tour
1A), is a junction with Fair Oaks Ave. (see Tour 1A).
SAN MARINO, 9.7 m. (557 alt., 8,175 pop.), a residential com
munity with carefully enforced development restrictions, has many
costly mansions and fine bungalows spread over the flat plain of San
277
278 LOS AXGELES
Gabriel Valley and along the rolling San Gabriel foothills. Factories
are banned here, as are multiple-unit dwellings; municipal supervision
extends even to the cost and design of proposed structures.
San Marino, once part of the lands owned by Mission San Gabriel,
was included in the l5,OOO-acre Rancho San Pascual (see Pasadena)
granted in 1835 by Governor Figueroa to Juan Marine, a retired
officer who had served Spain as a lieutenant of artillery in the Depart
ment of Mexico. From him it passed through several hands, and in
the i86o s was acquired by James DeBarth Shorb as a wedding gift.
In 1903 Henry E. Huntington bought the property, razed the old Shorb
home, later built the mansion that is now an art gallery, and named
the tract for the European Republic of San Marino.
SAN MARINO CITY PARK, between Old Mill and Monterey Rds.
and Virginia Ave., west of the middle of town, is a recreational center
with a large garden containing several hundred varieties of roses.
HUNTINGTON LIBRARY AND ART GALLERY (open daily except
Mon. 1:15-4:30 p.m., closed in Oct.; free; adm. by card only, obtained
by written application stating preferred date of admission, enclosing
stamped, addressed envelope ; Pacific Electric streetcar service from Los
Angeles}, Stratford and Oxford Rds., contains an important collection
of rare books and manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, porcelains, tapes
tries, bronzes, miniatures, and fine old furniture. The library building,
a French Renaissance adaptation, is E-shaped; it is of white stone and
has a red tile roof. The front is windowless, and the entrances flank a
colonnade. In the building are approximately 200,000 books, 4,000
manuscripts, nearly 1,000,000 letters and other holographs, and large
numbers of first and early editions and English and American literary
manuscripts. These are in Exhibition Hall (R) near the main en
trance; among the treasures are the manuscript of Benjamin Franklin s
autobiography, a genealogy in the handwriting of George Washington,
letters from President Lincoln to General Grant, a rare Gutenberg
Bible, the Ellesmere Chaucer, a Shakespeare first folio, a volume of
Massachusetts laws of 1648, and other important items. In four rooms
of the west wing is the Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art Collec
tion of Italian and Flemish paintings of the I5th and i6th-centuries,
and sculptures, bronzes, porcelains, fine furniture, and other art objects,
chiefly from 18th-century France.
The Art Gallery, designed in the Georgian manner and built in
1910 by Henry E. Huntington as his home, faces a lawn-covered court
with a trim evergreen hedge, royal palms, and a marble fountain. This
building contains an unusually fine collection of 18th-century English
portraits, a number of landscapes of the period, and tapestries, minia
tures, and French and English furniture. In one room are six Gains-
boroughs, including The Blue Boy; five paintings by Reynolds, among
them his portrait of the English tragedienne, Sarah Siddons, as The
Tragic Muse; Lawrence s Pinkie; a Hoppner; a Raeburn; and a Con
stable. The favorite room of visitors is the library of the gallery.
Here is the tapestry La Noble Pastorale, designed by Francois Boucher
TOUR I 279
and woven on the royal looms at Beauvais during the reign of Louis
XV. Boucher also designed the chairs and fire screen.
The Botanical Gardens has 50 acres of plants and flowers, many
of them rare. Notable is a large cactus garden containing an unusually
comprehensive collection of desert flora.
Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927), founder of the estate, owned
large interests in the Los Angeles street railways and the Pacific Elec
tric interurban system. He was a nephew and heir of Collis P. Hunt
ington (see The Historical Background), one of the founders of the
Central Pacific Railroad. At the age of 60, Henry Huntington, with
the advice of experts, began his art collection. At his death in 1927, he
gave his estate and treasures to the public by deed of trust and provided
maintenance funds under supervision of a self-perpetuating board of
trustees. Huntington and his wife are buried on the grounds in a
circular white marble mausoleum with a low, column-supported dome.
In SANTA ANITA PARK (season varies; adm. $1.10, parking
, 13.2 m., which covers more than 200 acres is held the climactic
event of the southern California winter horse races; this is the annual
$100,000 Santa Anita Handicap a mile-and-a-quarter for three-year-
olds and up, usually run last week of meet. The light-green concrete
grandstand, seating 20,000, with six betting rings and a score of private
boxes, faces the one-mile oval track from the southwest. On the roof
at the eastern end is the press box, the camera booth where race fin
ishes are recorded on film and a radio broadcasting booth.
In the clubhouse, a modern concrete building reached from the
grandstand by a footbridge, are a restaurant, lounge, telegraph offices,
four betting rings, private-boxes, and a private terraced grandstand with
easy chairs. In the grassy infield, reached from the grandstand by a
tunnel, are large, carefully-tended flower beds. Fifteen hundred horses
can be cared for in the stables.
The track, opened Christmas Day 1934, under the management of
the Los Angeles Turf Club, Incorporated, is under the supervision of
the State Horse-Racing Board. The average seasonal attendance is
800,000, and during the first four years more than $25,000,000 was
wagered through the pari-mutuel betting machines.
The sprawling old frame buildings (R) of the Lvox PONY EX
PRESS MUSEUM (open 8-6 daily; adm. adults 25^, children 10$), 14
m. f contain a collection of^ e>rly-dny western relics, including a bullet-
scarred pioneer barroom and an office equipped with Wells-Fargo Ex
press Company furniture, safes, records and other equipment.
In the barroom is what the owner asserts is the largest known gold
scale, "so delicate that it w r ill weigh a pencil mark." In the Indian
Room are human scalps, many arrowheads, tomahawks, and other
artifacts. Among other relics are a San Francisco vigilante bell that
tolled the death of nearly 50 bandits, a shotgun 12 feet long; waxed
figures of notable characters of the old West ; stagecoaches, including
five old Concords; five hand-drawn fire engines; hundreds of revolvers
and rifles; an old Spanish cannon; an early printing office with a Wash-
280 LOS ANGELES
ington hand press; an extensive collection of early Western photo
graphs; and a 49 gambling set-up with roulette wheels, lottery, faro
tables, loaded dice, and marked cards.
The museum, founded in Pasadena in 1922 by W. Parker Lyon,
quondam mayor of Fresno, California, was moved to this place in 1935.
At 14 m. is the junction with US 66 (Colorado Place), which
unites eastward with Huntington Drive North.
Left on Colorado Place 1.5 m. to Old Ranch Road; L. here to the center of
the remnant of RANCHO SANTA ANITA, 2 m., where the fabulous E. J. (Lucky)
Baldwin held forth between the years 1875-1909, when he died at the age of
8 1 in comparative poverty. Among fine old palms, eucalyptuses, oaks, pepper
trees, and locust trees are the barn, where Baldwin kept his many thorough
bred horses, the coach house topped with Victorian pseudo belfries, the log
cabin Baldwin brought here from his father s Hamilton, Ohio farm in the
i88o s, the cottage of Queen Anne design that was once the Baldwin guest
house and art gallery, and the HUGO REID ADOBE built by the Rancho Santa
Anita owner of 1839.
When first granted, the Rancho Santa Anita of more than 13,000 acres,
extended from the oak-covered San Gabriel foothills across most of the valley
floor, encompassing the sites of the modern cities of Sierra Madre, Arcadia,
and Monrovia. Like the rest of the valley, it had belonged to Mission San
Gabriel, but in 1841 Governor Alvarado granted it to Hugo Reid, an English
man who married an Indian woman. Six years later Reid sold it for $4,000.
The property was transferred several times subsequently in 1854 for $33,000
and in 1872 for $85,000; the latter sale was to Harris Newmark, a Los Angeles
merchant. In 1875 "Lucky" Baldwin offered Newmark $150,000 cash for this
holding. Newmark wanted $175,000; Baldwin hedged. By the time he decided
to pay Newmark s price it was $200,000. And for $200,000 "Lucky" took title
to the ranch, reduced by that time to 8,000 acres. The mining king imme
diately invested $100,000 in Kentucky thoroughbreds, built stables, and im
proved the irrigation system. Until 1883, when he subdivided a large section
of the land, Baldwin continued to acquire adjoining property, in time holding
some 50,000 acres; he planted walnut, almond, peach, pear, apricot, Japanese
persimmon, olive, camphor, and pepper trees, experimented with the growing
of coffee and tea plants and maintained a large vineyard and winery. At the
height of its prosperity, the ranch was valued at $10,000,000.
Elias Jackson Baldwin was born in Ohio in 1828. At 16 he was already
known as a shrewd horse trader, at 18 he was married, and at 20 he owned
a general store and three boats transporting grain from Chicago to St. Louis.
He arrived in California in 1853; by 1875 he had already amassed between
five and eight million dollars, beginning with hotel and livery stable invest
ments, later branching into mining. He was nicknamed "Lucky" because of
his fabulous mining success.
But the squire of Santa Anita was even more famed for his love affairs
than for his mining luck. Four and possibly five times married, he was
also the protector of numerous other young women from time to time. In
1883 one of them shot him in the arm, later sued him for the maintenance
of her child, and finally went insane. In 1884 shortly after one of his
marriages, a i6-year-old inamorata appeared, announced herself a prior
fiancee, and won a judgment of $75,000. In 1888 he was again sued by a
woman who introduced a child as evidence. Himself 60, Baldwin observed:
"The woman is old and homely. Anyone who has seen her would not credit
her charge against me." The woman was 31. In court, toward the end
of the trail, a sister of the complainant fired a pistol at "Lucky," barely missing
his head. "Baldwin s own reputation," said the court, "if not national, was
certainly more than local. . . . Wherefore we indulge the not unreasonable
hope that this case will prove the last of a malodorous brood."
TOUR I 28l
ARCADIA, 14.4 m. (495 alt., 9,122 pop.), a business center for
owners of orchards and vegetable farms, is on virtually level valley
floor, below occasional large estates, orchards, and vineyards of the foot
hills. It was founded during a general real-estate boom in 1903 by
Lucky Baldwin, on his Rancho Santa Anita.
The SANTA ANITA PLAYGROUND, on the western outskirts of town,
contains a large swimming pool, an i8-hole golf course, large shady pic
nic grounds, eight tennis courts, sand boxes, six horseshoe quoits courts,
a baseball field with a concrete grandstand, and other recreational
equipment.
The SANTA ANITA STATION of the Santa Fe Railway, built in 1882
on what is now the outskirts of Arcadia, still uses an iron-bellied wood-
stove, and, as in the past, contains a post office. Although passengers
seldom entrain here now, all trains except the Chief and the Super
Chief can be flagged to a stop ; this privilege harks back to the days
when Baldwin, learning that a certain train had not stopped at Santa
Anita, ordered 200 men to tear up the Santa Fe tracks through his
ranch. Trains stopped at Santa Anita thereafter.
Left from Arcadia on Santa Anita Avenue to the junction with Foothill
Boluevard, 0.8 m.; L. on Foothill Boulevard to the junction with Baldwin
Avenue, 1.9 m.; R. on Baldwin Avenue to SIERRA MADRE (mother range),
2.8 m. (835 alt., 3,550 pop.), on a slope of the San Gabriel Mountains, also
once part of the extensive Rancho Santa Anita. Sierra Madre was subdivided
in 1882 by Nathaniel C. Carter, a New Englander who had gone into business
in Los Angeles, but it was not incorporated until 1907. Although partly sur
rounded by estates, the town is largely supported by the business of growers
of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, guavas, avocados, persimmons, and figs.
The WISTERIA VINE (open 9-4. daily; adm. 10$), on the Fennel estate,
Carter St. and Hermosa Ave., almost engulfs the house of its owner, running
over arbors and into trees. The vine, which usually blooms during the last
two weeks of March, was planted in 1893. The Wisteria Fete held annually
at Blossoming time attracts thousands.
MONROVIA, 15.9 ?n. (560 alt., 12,807 pop.), close to the pro
tecting San Gabriel Mountains, is a modern town with wide, shaded
streets, well-kept lawns, flower gardens, and semitropical trees. It has
a Carnegie Library, a symphony orchestra, and three municipal parks;
it manufactures water heaters, pipe, soap and cemetery monuments.
The town was named for W. N. Monroe, a Civil War veteran who
was one of three men who established it in 1886 after buying a hundred
acres from Lucky Baldwin for $29,855, and another hundred acres
from the owner of Rancho Azusa de Duarte (see below}.
On Gold Hill, at the northern end of Alta Vista Street, is the
A. E. CRONENWETT TROPICAL PLANTATION, in which is an orchard
with a dozen varieties of papaya trees and experimental plantings of
other tropical fruit trees. The papayas were grown from seeds, im
ported from the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, Guatemala, Costa
Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, southern Mexico, Ceylon, Tahiti, India,
and the Malay Peninsula. Carica papaya, like the palm, is branchless,
its trunk culminating in a crest of palmately lobed leaves about two feet
282 LOS ANGELES
wide. The fruit, which grows in clusters among the stalks of the
leaves, attaining a length of eight to ten inches, is shaped like a musk-
melon. It matures and blossoms at all seasons, green fruit and ripe
are frequently on the tree at the same time. The papaya is used as a
breakfast fruit, and is made into marmalade, jelly, pickles, and other
delicacies.
DUARTE, 18.4 ///. (540 alt.. 2,197 pop.), is the business center
of a district producing citrus fruits and avocados. The town lies on
part of the Rancho Azusa de Duarte, a Mexican grant made in 1841
to Andreas Duarte by Governor Alvarado in reward for military ser
vices. In 1864-65, after a mortgage on it was foreclosed, it was sub
divided.
East of Duarte the highway crosses the San Gabriel River, 19.4 m. }
dry in summer, often a torrent in winter. Gravel and rock for railroad
and highway construction are taken from the river-bed in great quan
tities.
In AZUSA, 21.2 m. (611 alt., 5,209 pop.), at the mouth of San
Gabriel Canyon (see Tour IB), are three packing houses that ship
approximately 2,000 cars of Valencia oranges a year. Lemons, grape
fruit, tangerines, avocados, and walnuts are also shipped, as well as
poultry, dairy products, and honey. The town also manufactures
chemicals, pipe, and fertilizer.
The origin of the word Azusa is vague. It was the name given to
this district by the Spanish settlers, and was doubtless their inaccurate
pronunciation of its original Indian name, which was Asuksagua
(lodge) according to one source, and Asuksagna (place of skunks) ac
cording to another.
Like Duarte, Azusa is on part of the former Rancho Azusa de
Duarte. In 1844 Henry Dalton, merchant, shipowner, and importer,
bought this ranch from its Mexican owner for $7,000. He fought
such a long battle in the courts to evict squatters that he exhausted
his capital and had to borrow money from J. S. Slauson, a Los Angeles
banker, to carry on. Eventually he lost the property through fore
closure and Slauson and associates founded the town on it in 1898.
Six-acre AZUSA CITY PARK, along Foothill Boulevard, surrounds
the Civic BUILDING, which houses not only the city offices but also
the public library, Chamber of Commerce, and the Civic Auditorium.
Azusa is at the junction with State 39 (see Tour IB).
GLENDORA (L), 23.9 m. (776 alt., 2,822 pop.), also near the
San Gabriel foothills, calls itself "the Citrus City." It is entirely
surrounded by citrus groves and has six large citrus packing plants.
The town, founded in 1887 by George Whitcomb, a Chicago manu
facturer, was incorporated in 1911.
At 27.1 m. is a junction with San Dimas Avenue.
Right on San Dimas Avenue to SAN DIMAS, 1.5 m. (955 alt., 3,588 pop.),
close to the San Jose Hills on the southern side of San Gabriel Valley. Citrus
packing is the chief industry but berries, vegetables, and small fruits are also
grown in the environs. There are a number of nurseries here growing orna-
TOUR I 283
mental and deciduous trees and tropical and semitropical flowers. Many of
the houses have verandas covered with honeysuckle and the lavender-blossom
ing wisteria.
The town is named for a canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains where
Ignacio Palomares (see below) is said to have pastured his herds. Because
thieving Indians raided his cattle there, so the story goes, Palomares named
the canyon for the repentant thief, Dirnas, who was crucified with Christ.
Right from San Dimas on San Uimas Ave. 3.5 m. to the junction with
Mountain Meadows Rd. ; L. on Mountain Meadows Rd., to PUDDING-
STONE DAM (R), 4.5 m., chief of three in the Puddingstone Creek-Covina
Wash flood control project. The main dam, of the earth-fill, concrete-core
type, is more than 1,000 feet long and 147 feet high. Two lesser gaps in
the hills are closed by the smaller dams. The three dams create Puddingstone
Reservoir, with a surface area of nearly 500 acres; it is stocked with black
IKI-S, blue-gill perch and catfish (black bass fishing Dec. I to May 29}.
At 27.6 m. on US 66 is the junction with San Dimas Canyon Rd.
Left here to SAN DIMAS CANYON PARK (picnicking facilities; free],
0.3 m., more than a hundred acres of natural woodland maintained by Los
Angeles County.
LA VERNE, 29.4 ///. (1,050 alt., 3,092 pop.), has four citrus
packing plants. The metal-corniced red-brick buildings along San
Dimas Avenue, the main business street, date from 1891.
La Verne was founded as Lordsburg, during the boom days of 1888
(see The Historical Background) ; when the boom burst, a three-story
$75,000 hotel, stark and empty, remained as a monument. In 1890 the
Santa Fe Railway, which had built a station near the settlement, of
fered: "A free ride from anywhere east of the Rocky Mountains to
Lordsburg, California. Anyone purchasing $500 worth of lots in
Lordsburg will have his fare paid, and for $750, the fare of two
persons." Members of the Church of the German Baptist Brethren
Church, sometimes called Dunkers, responded to the offer and by 1895
constituted the majority of the 2,500 population. The present name
was adopted in 1917.
LA VERNE COLLEGE, between ist and 3rd, College and B Sts.,
now occupies four buildings. FOUNDER S HALL, deep in the grounds,
is a modern white concrete building containing classrooms, an audi
torium, and the administration offices. There is one instructor for every
10 students of the 160-170 enrolled annually. The school, founded in
1891 by the Dunkers in the boom-time hotel, was first named Lords
burg College, and opened with nearly as many students as it has todav.
Room, board, and tuition cost only $137.50 a year. During the lean
nineties the school was closed for two years, but in 1903 W. C. Hana-
walt, a Philadelphia Dunker, reopened it and enabled the students to
earn part of their subsistence; they grew vegetables and raised cattle,
milked the cows, churned the butter, and canned food for the winter.
CLAREMONT, 32 m. (1,175 alt., 3,057 pop.), surrounded by
citrus orchards, is the home of the first California citrus association,
formed in 1893. The first oranges shipped from this section about
2,ooo boxes were packed on the Santa Fe Railway station platform.
284 LOS ANGELES
Today there are five large packing houses that ship approximately
750,000 boxes annually. Claremont factories produce marmalade, rugs,
tree sprayers, and air cleaners for automotive machinery.
In the early days an almost perpetual mire, for some obscure reason
called Gospel Swamp, covered much of the district. It was infested
with coyotes, wildcats, and rattlesnakes and only a few wagon trails,
winding crazily to avoid the morasses, connected Claremont with the
rest of southern California.
The town s three colleges, known collectively as Claremont Col
leges, Inc., were planned to retain the advantages of small colleges
while providing the facilities of a university. The colleges have a com
mon library, laboratories, and equipment, while preserving their indi
vidual identities and traditions.
POMONA COLLEGE on a beautiful campus bounded by ist and 8th
Sts., Mills and Harvard Aves., occupies 14 buildings and has approxi
mately 800 students. It was opened by the First District Congrega
tional Association in a small white frame house at 5th and White Aves.
in Pomona in 1887. After the real estate boom of the i88o s was over,
it was moved to this place and housed in the unfinished and abandoned
Claremont Hotel. SUMNER HALL, called Old Sumner, is the re
modeled hotel. Other units, some ivy-covered, some ultra-modern,
include Holmes containing the chapel, Pearson Hall of Science, the
Library, Crookshank Hall of Zoology, Frary Hall the dining quar
ters, the new Memorial Training Building, Harwood Hall of Botany,
and Mason Hall of Chemistry.
SCRIPPS COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, bounded by Foothill Blvd., Co
lumbia Ave., gth St., and Amherst Ave., in 1927 became a part of
Claremont Colleges, Inc., through a gift of Miss Ellen Scripps, of the
Scripps newspaper-owning family. Rigid scholastic standards keep the
enrollment at approximately two hundred.
The seven main buildings, of modified Spanish design, stand among
gardens on a lawn shaded by wide-spreading pepper and oak trees and
tall eucalyptuses.
CLAREMONT COLLEGE, adjoining the other two colleges, has five
main buildings and gives graduate work for about 2OO students.
At 32.7 m. is a junction with Baldy Road.
Left on Baldy Road to Palmer Canyon Road, 2.8 m.; L. here to the PADUA
HILLS THEATRE (performances Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat., 8:30 p.m., Wed., Sat.,
2:30 p.m.; adm. $l], 3 m., the home of the Mexican Players, who have an
extensive repertoire of light comedy and drama in Spanish vernacular. The
theatre, seating about 300, is open all the year, with productions running from
two to four weeks. The buildings, of modified Spanish design, are on a gentle
slope. Adjoining are curio shops, studios, and a restaurant sheltered by a
very old olive orchard.
The Padua Hills Theatre, founded in 1930, is a non-profit organization
affiliated with the Claremont Colleges, Inc. All student-players and profes
sionals are native Californians.
UPLAND, 35.9 m. (1,210 alt., 6,316 pop.), founded in 1882 as a
part of Ontario (see Tour #), was first called Magnolia Tract, or
TOUR I 285
Magnolia Villa. Later it became North Ontario. In 1902 it was
given its present name and in 1906 was incorporated. More than
6,000 acres of citrus trees grow in the vicinity, many of the groves
more than 45 years old, and there are nine citrus packing plants in the
city. Poultry and rabbit raising, production of honey, and tanning
are added to local income.
Euclid Avenue, a boulevard of exceptional beauty, extends from
the San Gabriel foothills southward 15 miles toward the Chino Hills.
It is a wide double-lane road shaded by large pepper and grevillea
trees. North of Foothill Boulevard the well-kept center parkway has
a bridle path, that leads to the residential section of San Antonio
Heights. At the turn of the century a horsecar line ran up the park
way to a terminus in the foothills north of Upland. On return trips
the rickety car coasted down grade with the horses riding on the rear
platform.
At the intersection of Euclid Ave. and US 66 stands THE MA-
DOXNA OF THE TRAILS MONUMENT, a heroic figure of an idealized
pioneer woman and children framed by feathery pepper trees. The
model of the monument, which is duplicated in many places throughout
the country, was selected by popular vote in a contest conducted by
E. Marland, Oklahoma oil millionaire. This monument, erected by
the Daughters of the American Revolution, commemorates the visit
to this region of the first Americans entering California by overland
trails Jedediah Strong Smith and a party of 16 trappers in 1826.
SAN ANTONIO PARK, near the foothills to the north, is a popular
family picnic grounds named for Mount San Antonio Old Baldy.
CUCAMONGA (R), 39.1 m. (1,220 alt., 4,747 Pop.), like all
cities dotting this route, is a trade center of ranches. It was named for
Cucamonga Peak (8,911 alt.), directly north. Some say that the name
means "place of many springs," others "lewd woman." The second
translation comes from a legend that an Indian chief sent his wayward
daughter to live alone on the peak.
The CUCAMONGA WINERY, 39.3 //;., built in 1839 according to a
sign on the building, is the oldest winery in California. Within the
thick walls are 14 old wine storage tanks. Two 5oo-gallon vats, no
longer used, were brought around Cape Horn. The grape crusher,
first operated by hydraulic power, was replaced in 1883 by electrically
powered equipment. The annual output of dry and sweet wines, about
150,000 gallons, comes from grapes grown on the 800 acres of land
nearby (see Tour 2).
In 1839 Governor Alvarado granted to Tiburcio Tapia, a wealthy
Los Angeles merchant, some 20 square miles of land here for grazing
purposes. The grant included all of what was then called the Cuca
monga Territory, inhabited by Cucamonga, a Shoshone tribe. One of
the stipulations of the grant, that Tapia build upon the property imme
diately, was satisfied by erection of this winery. He also planted 12
rows of grapevines, 12 vines to a row, from San Gabriel Mission stock.
The last of these vines were removed in the late 1920*5.
286 LOS ANGELES
In 1858, the property was sold to John Raines, who set out 125,000
more vines. The property eventually fell under control of the Cuca-
monga Water Company, which established the town.
East of Cucamonga the highway for several miles is bordered on
both sides by the vast vineyards of the Italian Vineyard Company
(see Tour 2).
FONTANA, 47.9 m. (1,242 alt., 3,194 pop.), lies amid 5,000 acres
of citrus orchards, 3,000 acres of walnuts, and extensive vineyards.
Here, too, are large poultry and duck ranches, and a large hog farm.
Near the foothills (L) is the UNITED STATES RABBIT EXPERIMENTAL
STATION.
RIALTO, 51.5 7/2. (1,203 alt., 1,770 pop.), has seven citrus pack
ing houses, a large cement pipe factory, and a ladder manufacturing
plant.
SAN BERNARDINO, 56 m. (1,073 alt., 43,646 pop.), a cosmo
politan city that retains an atmosphere of early times missing in most
parts of southern California, lies in the flat southwestern corner of
sprawling San Bernardino County, of which it is the seat. It is com
pact and symmetrically-platted, and its residential streets are well
shaded. Many of its dwellings and commercial buildings date from
the last century. The main business section is east and west along
Third Street, and north and south along E Street. It is the chief
trading center of a large mining and agricultural district, but the
majority of its working population is employed in the extensive shops,
yards, and offices of the Santa Fe Railway.
The region around San Bernardino was early known to the padres
of San Gabriel Mission (see Tour 3) for its fertility. Because of the
large Indian population of the region, Father Dumetz established an
asistencia (chapel) and supply station for the mission in 1810 at the
Indian village of Guachama, which was near the present-day city, and
named it in honor of St. Bernard of Sienna, patron saint of mountain
passes, because of its proximity to Cajon Pass (see Tour 7). In 1812
the Indians destroyed the outpost, blaming the numerous earthquakes
of that year on the presence of the missionaries. In 1820, however,
the station was rebuilt; a large adobe house was constructed for the
major-domo and visiting padres, and part of it used as a granary. The
chapel was merely an enramada (shed). The Indians were enrolled to
build the zanja (ditch) from Mill Creek Canyon to the station the
first irrigation ditch in the valley. In 1831 the Piute tribes from the
desert attacked the station and its Indians. By 1833, when the Mexi
can Government secularized the church lands (see Pueblo to Metrop
olis), the station had again been rebuilt. In 1834 tne Piutes again
destroyed it, and the padres left it permanently.
In 1842 a land grant, Rancho de San Bernardino, was presented
by the Mexican Government to Diego Sepulveda and the three sons
of Antonio Lugo, all of Los Angeles. This grant of 37,000 acres was
one of the largest made in California.
In 1851, Captain Jefferson Hunt led 500 Mormons, with their
TOUR I 287
cattle, horses, and other necessities, from Salt Lake City to this area
and a year later the Mormons bought the rancho. Almost imme
diately they b uilt an elaborate stockade 300 feet wide and 700 feet
long for protection against the Indians, where the courthouse now
stands. They established a school in 1851 near the foot of Cajon
Pa^ and in the following year another in a tent within the stockade.
In 1853, about 24,000 square miles of land were detached from the
eastern part of Los Angeles County and named San Bernardino County;
in the following year the town of San Bernardino was incorporated as
its seat.
All the town s early structures were of adobe. The Council House,
the first public building, was constructed in 1853 inside the stockade.
The first postmaster, who worked without pay, distributed the mail
brought in by stages and on horseback from his hat in front of the fort
once a month. Mail service was very irregular until 1858, when a mail
stage line between the city and Los Angeles was established.
In 1857 Brigham Young recalled the faithful of all the nation to
Salt Lake City and a majority of the Mormons left; enough remained,
however, to give the city a present-day Mormon population of about
two thousand.
The coming of the railroads through Cajon Pass in 1883 gave the
settlement its first real opportunity to grow.
The SAX BERNARDINO COUNTY COURTHOUSE (1926), Arrowhead
Ave. between 3rd and 4th Sts., on the site of the Mormon fort, has
eight monumental columns on its facade. The County Jail is on the
top floor.
In PIONEER PARK, 6th St. between E and F Sts., are the MEMO
RIAL AUDITORIUM, honoring local World War dead and veterans, a
SAILORS AND SOLDIERS MONUMENT dedicated to the heroes of the
Mexican, Civil and Spanish-American Wars, a PIONEER CABIN con
taining relics, some from Mormon days, including a cart used by the
Mormons in hauling logs from the mountains.
FERRIS HILL PARK, in the northeastern section of the city, has
tennis courts, a swimming pool, a baseball and football park, and an
outdoor concert bowl used for community sings and concerts.
The NATIONAL ORANGE SHOW BUILDING (annual show daily for
II days in March, 10 a.m.-n :JO p.m., adm. 50^, children 25$), Mill
and E Sts., is an immense frame structure painted white with blue
trim.
The Orange Show has been held every year since 1910, when San
Bernardino businessmen inaugurated it. The city goes into carnival
attire for the occasion, decorating its streets, store fronts, shop-windows,
streetcars and busses with orange-colored banners and other ornaments.
A local "queen" leads a parade through the streets on the opening day.
and the show grounds are thick with floats, citrus exhibits, Ferris-
wheels, and other amusement concessions. Daily programs are pre
sented, with movie and radio stars, acrobats, dancers, orchestras, and
bands.
288 LOS ANGELES
The main building is filled with lighted castles, fans, ships, and
diverse other figures made entirely of oranges, grapefruit, and lemons.
These exhibits, and those in the industrial section which show meth
ods and equipment used in the culture and handling of citrus fruits, the
manufacture and use of citrus byproducts, and various related matters
are prepared by cities, towns, and counties, growers organizations, indi
vidual orchardists, and sundry organizations.
The citrus industry ranks next to dairying as an income-producer
in California. Oranges are the largest single fruit crop; the fruit crops
head all others in agriculture, and agriculture ranks second to manu
facturing among the state s industries. The annual orange crop is
twice as valuable as the gold produced in the state, nearly twice as
valuable as the lumber, and nearly five times as valuable as the fish
catch. In the production of oranges, California ranks first in the
United States, and the United States ranks first in the world.
In California citrus-fruit growing is probably the most highly de
veloped of all crop-cultures, though it is relatively very young. The
first orange grove was planted not earlier than 1805, and it was not
until the late i88o s that oranges were produced in commercial quanti
ties. The orange is a fruit thriving only under tropical or sub-tropical
conditions, and even in southern California great care and skill must
be exercised to combat its many natural enemies heat and dryness
in summer, wind and frost in winter, and a plethora of diseases and
insect pests. The complicated and scientific nature of the processes
involved in producing these fruits in commercially valuable quantities
explains the necessity of establishing such an institution as the Citrus
Experiment Station of the University of California, at Riverside (see
Tour 3).
Today all trees in the important groves of the state are of pedi
greed stock; a careful record of each tree s performance is kept from sea
son to season, and when a tree, or even a single limb of a tree, is found
to produce fruit of inferior quality or of less than minimum quantity
for two or three consecutive seasons, the tree or limb is removed or
cut back and re-budded with grafts from selected parent trees that is,
trees known to produce high quality fruit in quantity. Only the best
strains of each variety of tree are propagated ; great care is taken to
prevent the development of abnormal or subnormal strains and also to
prevent cross pollenization of the established strains.
The first step in producing a citrus tree is the planting of seed for
the root-stock, seed of a strong-rooted, disease-resisting variety of citrus
tree of sour orange for orange trees, of sweet orange for lemon trees.
The root-stock tree is removed from the lathhouse beds after a year or
more of growth, when it is about 12 inches high, and replanted in an
outdoor nursery, where it grows a year or two longer. The next step
is grafting. In this operation a twig bearing a healthy bud is cut from
a carefully selected parent tree and inserted in a slit in the bark of
the young root-stock tree. The little tree s own top is cut off when the
graft has developed into a branch, and the branch is then trained to
TOUR I 289
form a new top. After another year, this tree is transplanted to the
orchard. It does not begin to bear commercially for another three
years, when it is six years old, and will not be in full bearing until
about its tenth year. After this, if well cared for, it continues to in
crease in size and yield for fifty or more years.
In their early years the trees are carefully shaped by pruning of
the branches. Citrus trees have a rather dense, brittle, dark-green
foliage. Orange trees are commonly trimmed to one of two forms
vase-shaped, with tall up-growing main limbs having framework
strength; or bowl-shaped, with the upright limbs cut back and the
lateral main limbs encouraged to form a low, round, open-topped tree
convenient for picking and spraying.
The war against citrus pests is costly and difficult, and the amount
of tree medicines needed varies according to soil, tree, and climatic
conditions. Scale insects and citrus red spider, most destructive and
hardest to control, are the commonest pests. About once a year the
trees are covered with a canvas tarpaulin and fumigated to kill scale.
Insecticides of various types are sprayed upon the trees at intervals to
eliminate other destructive creatures.
In winter the orchardist keeps a vigil for frost warnings broadcast
over the radio and every cold night holds himself ready to light his
orchard heaters. Oranges can withstand a low temperature of between
26 and 29.5 and lemons between 27 and 30.5. The temperature
is usually lowest an hour before sunrise. When the mercury is drop
ping toward the danger point, the waiting crews hurry through the
groves lighting the heaters one to a tree with long-spouted gasoline
torches. Each lighter is followed by a man who regulates the heaters,
which are of various types. Those most commonly used are oil-burning
stack-pots, slightly smaller than the usual washtub, with a stack two
or three feet high. In some districts, however, smudge-pot heating is
still widely used; these pots produce a thick blanket of black smoke
that hangs low in the air not only over miles of orchards but ?lso over
nearby towns.
During the rainless summers the orchards must have irrigation for
48 hours at intervals of three to five weeks according to the climate and
soil. Orchard lysimeters are used frequently during irrigation in order
to measure the percolation of the water, for the crop is ruined by too
much water as well as by too little. Irrigation water is carried to the
edge of the orchard by an underground iron or concrete conduit, and
brought to the surface by a concrete pipe that empties it into the
furrows.
Fertilization is another problem throughly studied by citrus experts.
A cover crop, such as vetch or clover, is planted between rows of trees
and plowed under in spring to add nitrogen to the soil. Stable manure
and various other organic fertilizers are also used. Inorganic fertilizers
are used on some soils to counteract acidity. As in combating insect
pests, both soil and climate must be studied and correctly diagnosed and
2QO LOS ANGELES
the proper materials, quantities, and methods prescribed and used if a
crop of commercial value is to be produced.
Orchards in windy areas must be protected by tall windbreaks of
evergreens; the eucalyptus, Monterey cypress, and the tamarisk are
most commonly used.
As fruit matures, a few average oranges from the orchards are
tested for their sugar content, which determines the time of picking.
Nearly all California citrus orchardites belong to a growers co-opera
tive most of them to the giant California Fruit Growers Exchange.
The fruit of the member growers is harvested by trained picking-crews
sent out from the association s nearest packing house. Great care is
used in handling the crop. The rind of the orange, though a perfect
seal for the fruit, is easily harmed by scratches or bruises, causing blue-
mold to appear even before the fruit is packed; therefore the picker
who does not pick, but clips the stem close enough to the fruit that no
sharp end is left to scratch other oranges wears soft gloves and places
the fruit in a sack with a buttoned flap at the bottom. When full, the
sack is placed in a box, the flap is released, and the fruit falls gently
into the box. In gathering lemons, the picker cuts only fruit too large
to pass through a ring he carries. The lemon orchard is gone over each
month, harvesting being determined by size, though the fruit is still
dark green in color.
For a day or two after harvest, oranges stand in the packing house
until some of the moisture in the rind evaporates, since a drier skin is
not so easily injured by handling. The fruit is then washed in warm
soapy water, passed through rows of revolving brushes, into cold water,
and finally over more brushes under a drying blast of air. The oranges
roll on canvas belts to the grading tables where trained workers, usu
ally women, sort according to standards of appearance. Many packing
houses now employ a fluoroscope to detect frostbite, granulation, and
other internal imperfections of oranges. The size and condition of
the skin of an orange has no influence on its quality.
The finest oranges of medium-large size and without blemishes are
stamped with the packing house s trademark for best quality. Each
association has its own brand-names to designate the various grades.
Fruit two or three grades below the best is ripe, has good flavor and
perfect inner texture, but differs from the top grade chiefly in ap
pearance.
After it is stamped the fruit is wrapped in tissue paper and packed
in a symmetrical pattern, a certain number of a certain size being
packed in each box. Oranges are packed in ten principle sizes, ranging
from 100 to a box to 344. The boxes are loaded onto freight cars, iced
in summer and warmed in the coldest seasons. Fruit trains, especially
those carrying citrus fruits, run on express schedule.
The growers co-operatives have contributed greatly to the reduction
of the high cost of orange growing in California by facilitating picking,
hauling, packing, and marketing, and by providing these services at
cost. The fruit of the grower-members is sold in a pool and the pro-
TOUR I 291
ceeds are divided among the orchardists on the basis of the quality and
quantity of fruit each has contributed. The larger organizations have
established research laboratories in which methods of putting the citrus
fruits to new uses are studied ; cull fruits, or those below salable grade,
are used in the manufacture of juice concentrates, orange and lemon
oils and acids, citrate of lime, citrus pectin, and canned juice.
The chief disadvantages of the co-operatives are their tendency
toward monopoly and price fixing. With the development of citrus
growing along highly scientific and industrialized lines, and with the
large investment (more than $250 an acre) needed to produce an
orange crop, only large concerns can operate profitably. Thus the
industry is dominated by a comparatively few growers who tend to
control markets and prices through the co-operatives. Market reports
received regularly from important consumption areas dictate supply.
Surplus fruit is sometimes destroyed to maintain prices, although this
practice is diminishing since the Surplus Commodity Corporation began
functioning.
Most California oranges are of two varieties. The navel, ripening
in winter, is grown in the warmer inland regions; it is seedless, of
high color, and distinguished from other varieties by the formation of
the rind at the blossom-end. The Valencia, ripening in summer, is
grown in the cooler coastal regions. It is the Valencia that is usually
shown in photographs and paintings as a tinted yellow ball hanging on
the tree among new blossoms with a snow-capped peak in the back
ground.
Unlike other oranges the Valencia may be held on the tree for
several months after it has attained full color; presently the rind
begins to turn green, starting at the stem end. The process does not
affect the fruit s flavor; actually it is at complete maturity at this time,
though it is commonly mistaken for immature fruit by novices. The
ripening seasons of the two varieties overlap, keeping the orange market
steady the year round.
The orange, which was introduced into Spain from China by the
Portuguese, was brought into this country from Lower California by
the Franciscan missionaries. The first orchard was planted at San
Gabriel Mission (see Tour 3) about 1805. The navel variety was
introduced to the United States when two of several small orange trees
were sent to Washington from Brazil, where they were developed
from sport buds growing on a variety of Portuguese orange tree. In
1873 two of these were received by Mrs. Eliza C. Tibbets of Riverside
from a friend in the Department of Agriculture. Mrs. Tibbets sold
cuttings, and by the time the first Valencia seedlings arrived from
London by way of Spain in 1876 navel orange growing was actually
established in California.
Of the other citrus fruits, only two, the lemon and the grapefruit,
are produced in important commercial quantities in California. Some
tangerines are grown for market, but limes, citrons, and kumquats in
only a few places.
2Q2 LOS ANGELES
In the United States, California alone produces lemons on a large
scale, and is third in the production of grapefruit. San Bernardino
County leads in lemon growing, Imperial County in grapefruit.
In San Bernardino is the junction with State 18 (Sierra Way),
which becomes the main route; L. on this route.
A boundary of SAN BERNARDINO NATIONAL FOREST is
at 61 m. This reserve of four-fifths of a million acres adjoins Angeles
National Forest, of which until 1925 it was a part. The chief purpose
of the reserve is water conservation. Most of its timber is too remote
for profitable logging but several streams in the area furnish hydro
electric power.
At 62.3 m. is the junction with a private, hard-surfaced road.
Right on this road to ARROWHEAD HOT SPRINGS, 1 m. (2,000 alt,),
on the slope of Arrowhead Peak. The hotel here was constructed in 1939
to replace one destroyed during a forest fire in 1938. There are four main
springs three hot; one used for mud baths. In near-by Waterman Canyon
are many natural steam baths caves heated by more than 100 hot springs;
their temperature is frequently as high as 160. This mile-long hot belt is
on the main San Andreas fault (see Natural Setting], which is largely re
sponsible for the emergence of the hot springs at this point.
The ARROWHEAD, above the hotel on the southeast side of ARROWHEAD PARK
(4,216 alt.), is a natural fissure 1,376 feet long and 449 feet wide. Various
Indian tribes who roamed the San Bernardino Mountains before the coming
of the white man considered the Arrowhead a sign from the Great Spirit
designating a good hunting ground. In this afea the Indians hunted Tukuchu,
the puma; Tukut, the wildcat; Wahilyam, the coyote; Wanats, the wolf, and
Widukut, the buzzard. Coyotes and buzzards are still abundant and the dis
trict below the Arrowhead is now a United States game refuge.
Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, is said to have had a dream in which
a heavenly spirit instructed him to send some of his followers toward the
Pacific where they would see a strange sign on a mountain. Here, the story
goes, Young was ordered to have his followers settle. Whether or not on
heavenly instruction, a Mormon caravan came southeast from the Great Salt
Lake country, saw the arrowhead, and laid out San Bernardino in 1851.
ARROWHEAD SUMMIT (gas, cafe], 74.1 m. (5,174 alt.), is merely
a wide spot on the highway.
Right from Arrowhead Summit on Crestline Road to CRESTLINE VIL
LAGE (ski jumps, toboggan slide], 4.4 m. (4,850 alt., summer pop. 700, winter
100.) This resort town has a compact little business district, with stores,
post office, a free county library, an elementary school, and a two-story, many-
gabled, rustic lodge.
Large CRESTLINE BOWL is used for pageants and theatrical productions.
The BAYLIS OAK, at the southern end of the village, with a circumference of
more than 46 feet, was named for Dr. J. N. Baylis, who promoted the develop
ment of the recreational use of the region.
At 4.5 m. is the junction of Crestline Road and a remaining stretch of the
Mormon Road, a i6-mile stretch built in 1852 by the settlers of San Ber
nardino in 1,000 days. The cobblestone WAGON WHEEL MONUMENT (L) marks
the old road summit. Close by are a pair of cart wheels and a six-foot stone
standard holding what is said to be one of the first monitors used in mining
in this area.
Right from Crestline Road on the Mormon Road to CAMP SEELEY, 6.4 m.
(4,700 alt.) (camping reservations at Los Angeles Municipal Camp head-
TOUR I 293
quarters, City Hall, Los Angeles; rates vary with season] , a Los Angeles city
camp on the floor of the Valley of the Moon. It accommodates 250 people
and has an auto camp holding 28 trailers. The camp, among Douglas fir,
pine, and cedar, has a large recreation building, many furnished cabins, a
cafe, a dance pavilion, swimming pool, tennis, croquet, and volleyball courts,
indoor and outdoor sports fields, picnic ground, and a library.
An old circular saw is near the camp entrance, embedded in a monument
near the spot where the Mormons built a sawmill in 1853.
The San Bernardino County BAYLIS PARK PICNIC GROUNDS
(tables], 74.9 m. (5,369 alt.), is on a well-shaded promontory.
At 78.4 m. is a junction with Arrowhead Road.
Left on Arrowhead Road to LAKE ARROWHEAD VILLAGE (ski jumps,
toboggan slide; adm. $1 a car], 2 m., a summer and winter resort for the
well-to-do on the shore of Lake Arrowhead. The village is a crowded group
of buildings with Norman-English embellishments.
Homes, camps, and lodges bordering the lake on all sides are connected
by an 18. 5-mile road, beginning at the village entrance.
Land not privately owned is leased from the Forest Service by the year.
Many Angelenos, attracted by the names of prominent cinema visitors, have
cottages along the shores.
LAKE ARROWHEAD is two and one-half miles long and one and a half
wide. The earth dam creating it is 1,300 feet thick at the base, tapering to
40 feet at the summit. Construction was begun in 1901 by a private company.
After it was completed the state court ruled that the law giving such companies
the right to form irrigation districts was unconstitutional; the overflow from
Lake Arrowhead is consequently wasted on the Mojave Desert. The lake was
formerly called Little Bear. Shortly after the court gave its decision a corpo
ration purchased the land bordering the lake, changed the name and developed
the resort.
SKY FOREST POST OFFICE (gas, general store), 79.5 m.
(5,800 alt.), is a small settlement.
East of RUNNING SPRINGS (R), 85.4 m. (6,000 alt.), the
highway winds easily toward a level stretch, from which are views of
the Santa Ana watershed to the south and of the Mojave watershed to
the north. On clear days, or clear moon-flooded nights, the two
branches of the Mojave River are seen as silver threads in the distance.
Many bleached tree trunks are scattered about the plateau, relics of a
forest fire. Here, too, is open country profusely carpeted with wood-
wardia ferns and larkspur.
LAKEVIEW POINT (7,207 alt.), 92.7 m., the highest point on State
18, is a large parking space affording a view of SAN BERNARDINO
MOUNTAIN (10,666 alt.) far to the southeast.
East of the summit State 18 is much narrower, and twists and
turns along a ledge (warning, slide areas), slowly descending into Big
Bear Valley. This is the most treacherous stretch of road in southern
California.
The 125-foot concrete face of BIG BEAR DAM (R), 98.6 m.
(6,750 alt.), blocks a narrow canyon at the eastern end of Big Bear
Valley. BIG BEAR LAKE, almost eight miles long and four miles
wide, is a storage reservoir supplying the cities of San Bernardino and
Redlands.
294 LOS ANGELES
Nearly a hundred privately operated summer and winter resorts
(rates reasonable) dot the shores of Big Bear Lake (ski jumps, tobog
gan slides). The valley in which it lies is probably the result of glacial
action. The name dates from 1845, when a party of settlers visited
the area in search of Indians who had been stealing cattle. They re
ported a dearth of Indians but encountered an abundance of bears,
shooting twenty-two.
Gold was discovered in 1859 near the eastern end of Big Bear
Valley. Here Fawnskin Village was built. Across the lake, in the
general direction of Pine Knot, another gold discovery was made, but
both strikes proved to be surface or placer pockets and soon petered out.
By 1880 the area was practically deserted.
Lucky Baldwin acquired 6,000 acres of land at the eastern end of
the valley in 1870. Finding no gold, he attempted to subdivide his
holdings, but his famed luck deserted him. He left the area about 1876.
As early as 1884, construction of a dam was begun in Big Bear
Valley. The present dam, built between 1909 and 1912, is now the
property of the Bear Valley Mutual Water Company.
BIG BEAR CITY, 108.3 m. (6,755 alt., 50 pop.), is distinguished
by its white-painted street signs designating streets that do not exist
remains of an ambitious subdivision boom of predepression days. These
markers stretch along Big Bear Lake for nearly a mile on both sides
of the highway. In the tall pines (L) are a number of small cabins
and a few simple summer homes.
In Big Bear City is the junction with Peter Pan Road, which (R)
becomes the main route.
Left (straight ahead) on State 18 to BALDWIN LAKE (duck hunting),
1 m., a large, shallow body of water fed by springs and mountain streams.
It is surrounded by gray, almost treeless hills, infested with rabbits and
rattlesnakes.
PINE KNOT (trailer camps $0$ a day; cabins $7 to $18 a wk.),
114.2 m. (6,750 alt., 50 pop.), on Peter Pan Rd., is the metropolis of
the Big Bear Lake country. It is a rambling community with an array
of pine buildings. There are five hotels, several hundred cabins, three
dance halls, amusement concessions, a cinema, and the like.
West of Pine Knot, the road winds along the lake, over a rugged
ledge cut from the mountain, and across Big Bear Dam rejoins State
18 (see above) at 118.5 m.
TOUR I A 295
Tour I A
TO MOUNT WILSON
South Pasadena Pasadena Flintridge La Canada Mount Wilson,
27.9 m.; Fair Oaks Ave., Atlanta St., Arroyo Dr., La Canada-Verdugo
Rd. (State 1 1 8), Foothill Blvd., Haskell St., Angeles Crest Highway
(State 2), Mount Wilson Rd.
Asphalt-concrete, two-lane roadbed; drive moderately within five miles of
observatory; snow above Red Box Divide in winter and early spring; no gas
stations between La Canada and summit of Mount Wilson.
Hotel and cottages on Mount Wilson summit; no camping in cars or trailers
permitted on summit.
Cutting through one of the most spectacular areas of the Angeles
National Forest, this route winds to mile-high Mount Wilson, which v
though chiefly known for its great loo-inch telescope and its many
contributions to astronomical research, is also a year-round pleasure
resort.
The route branches north from Huntington Drive (see Tour 1)
m., on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena.
The limited business center of SOUTH PASADENA, 0.2 ///.
(600 alt., 14,356 pop.), serves a community whose wage earners are
for the most part engaged in business or the professions in adjoining
Pasadena and Los Angeles. The city is really a southern extension of
Pasadena, and many of its residents do their shopping in the mother
town.
In the FLORES ADOBE, 1804 Foothill St. (adm. by request), Mexi
can Army leaders met in 1847 f r a midnight conference to discuss
terms of surrender to Lieutenant Colonel John C. Fremont. They had
retreated to this place after their defeat in the Battle of the Mesa, the
troops camping among the sycamores at the foot of the hill. The adobe
bears the name of General Jose Maria Flores, who fled from it when
Fremont accepted the conditions of surrender.
Construction of the one-story, buff-colored adobe structure was be
gun in 1839 by Jose Perez, a relative of the owner of Rancho San
Pascual (see below). Perez died in 1840, with the house unfinished.
Three years later the grant was withdrawn because of failure to culti
vate and stock the land. The next grantee was Lieutenant Colonel
Manual Garfias, an impecunious officer on the staff of Governor
Michcltorena, who completed the house, but lost the rancho in the
1 850*5 through foreclosure.
The CORNER OAK, a conspicuous California live oak rising at
296 LOS ANGELES
the intersection of Warwick and St. Albans Avenues, was one of the
natural markers used in identifying the southwest corner of Rancho
San Pascual and the only corner marker that can now be definitely
identified. The grant, made in 1826, covered 13,693 acres, including
the present sites of Pasadena, South Pasadena, Altadena, and parts of
San Marino (see Tour 1).
The CATHEDRAL OAK, also called Portola Oak, on the western
side of Arroyo Dr., between Hermosa St. and Paloma Dr., is generally
regarded as marking the site of the first Easter services in California,
held by Father Juan Crespi, priest-historian of the Caspar de Portola
party, in 1770 (see The Historical Background).
PASADENA, 2.5 m. (850 alt., 81,864 pop.) (see Pasadena).
Points of Interest: California Institute of Technology, Rose Bowl, Brook-
side Park, Devil s Gate Dam, Colorado Street Bridge, Arroyo Seco, Busch
Gardens, and others.
The route continues on Fair Oaks Avenue to Atlanta Street; L.
on Atlanta to Arroyo Drive and R. briefly on Arroyo to La Canada-
Verdugo Road; L. on La Canada- Verdugo Road (State 118), which
at 5.9 m. crosses the top of DEVIL S GATE DAM (see Pasadena).
At 7 m. is the junction with Foothill Boulevard; L. on Foothill
Boulevard (State 118).
The route moves northwest through foothills that billow down
from the heights of the San Gabriel Mountains (R), and rise again less
steeply into the San Rafael Hills (L), crowned with the white, bow-
ered homes of unincorporated FLINTRIDGE. The San Gabriel Moun
tains, extending the 75 miles between Newhall Pass and Cajon Pass,
are characterized by an inordinately precipitous southern slope and have
continuous heights of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet, with occasional sharp
upthrusts reaching at some points more than 10,000 feet. A score or
more of mile-high peaks are seen at places along this route.
LA CANADA (the valley), 7.8 m. (1,563 alt.), a community
under county government, spreads over rolling hills at the southern end
of Verdugo Valley, with the Verdugo Hills (L) forming a giant back
drop. The townsite is a part of the Rancho La Canada, a 5,745-acre
grant made in 1843 by the Mexican Governor.
In La Canada is the junction with Haskell Street; R. from Foothill
Boulevard on this route to the junction with Angeles Crest Highway,
8.6 772.; R. from Haskell Street on Angeles Crest Highway (State a).
LOOKOUT, 9.6 m. (1,750 alt.), provides a view over Pasadena and
Altadena, with Devil s Gate Dam and Reservoir prominent in the near
distance. Arroyo Seco, a deep narrow valley eroded by flood waters,
is seen both above and below the reservoir. The action of water in
this canyon in past ages accounts for much of the interest of the scene
along this route.
The highway crosses a boundary of ANGELES NATIONAL
FOREST (see General Information) at 10.8 m. The forest covers
643,656 mountainous acres broken by deep canyons, thousand-foot
TOUR I A 297
precipices, and scores of peaks ranging from 1,000 to more than 10,000
feet in height. Extending for more than 50 miles along the northern
suburban rim of Los Angeles, its proximity to the metropolitan area has
made it a recreational district that draws approximately a million visi
tors annually. Resorts in the Big Pines (see Tour 7), and Crystal
Lake (see Tour IE) areas attract skiers, tobogganists, bobsledders, and
skaters during the winter.
The forest was created primarily for watershed protection, the
chaparral-clad slopes soaking up water and helping to prevent heavy
run-offs in the rainy season. While most of the preserve growth con
sists of chaparral, other types of vegetation, from desert cacti to large
timber, are numerous. At lower elevations are willows, broad-leaved
maples, live and valley oaks, acacias, western sycamores, California
laurels, white alders, cottonwoods, eucalyptuses, and pepper trees. In
the higher elevations are various kinds of conifer: the big-cone spruce,
which occasionally appears as far down as the 2,ooo-foot level ; the
Coulter pine, bearing cones weighing up to eight pounds; the western
yellow pine, or Pinus ponderosa, which forms most of the coniferous
growth ; Jeffrey, sugar, and one-leaf pine ; incense cedar, white fir, and
lodgepole pine also called tamarack. The incense cedar, sugar pine,
Jeffrey and tamarack thrive best above 5,000 feet.
Both the chaparral belt and the higher regions contain various
beautiful flowering plants, such as Indian paintbrushes, wind poppies,
lupines of many kinds and colors, leopard lilies, lemon lilies, and stream
and bog orchards.
Deer, the hunting of which is subject to strict state regulation (see
General Information), abound in the forest. In the rocky crags of
Mount San Antonio a few mountain goats survive under federal pro
tection. Among the predatory group are the California cougar, known
variously as puma, catamount, or mountain lion ; the bobcat, and the
desert coyote. Larger birds include hawks and the California vulture,
or buzzard. In the interior are a few eagles. The giant condor has
vanished from these mountains (see below), as have also the black and
grizzly bear.
The reservation, created in 1892 as the San Gabriel Timberland
Reserve, was the first national forest established in California, and one
of the earliest in the United States. In 1908 it was consolidated with
the San Bernardino Forest Reserve, but 13 years later was separated.
NINO CANYON LOOKOUT, 11.2 m. (2,100 alt.), offers a view (R)
across the gorge of Arroyo Seco to BROWN MOUNTAIN (4,485
alt.), a pinnacle named for the two sons of John Brown, the American
abolitionist of Harpers Ferry fame, who lived in Pasadena after the
Civil War. The big-cone spruce dark, ragged trees rising from the
far slope (R) are seen here by northbound travelers for the last time
on the route.
North of Nino Canyon Lookout the highway ascends the eastern
spur of MOUXT LUKENS (5,049 alt.), named for P. T. Lukens, twice
mayor of Pasadena and called California s "Father of Reforestation."
298 LOS ANGELES
It was he who discovered that seeds nurtured first in seedbeds and then
replanted produce better and quicker growths than seeds planted di
rectly on mountain slopes.
WOODWARDIA CANYON, 13.8 m., a gorge of primeval beauty, is so-
named for the brakes of Woodwardia fern that thrive in its depths.
A waterfall tumbles near the highway bridge, and along the contoured
walls of the canyon masses of blue lilac bloom in the spring.
GEORGE S GAP, 18 m., lies around a headland of pink crystalline
rock. From this vantage point is a view north (L) across the gap to
the gray-granite heights of MOUNT JOSEPHINE (5,558 alt.) and
STRAWBERRY PEAK (6,150 alt.). Far to the west is IRON MOUNTAIN
(5*637 alt.) and between Iron Mountain and the lookout point is
CONDOR PEAK (5,430 alt.), so-named because at one time it was fre
quented by the California condor, now found only in Santa Barbara
County. The condor, with its n-foot wingspread, is the only North
American bird to rival in size the Andean condor of South America.
LADY BUG CANYON, 20.4 m., is a hibernation refuge for the cocci-
nellida, the little red and black beetles commonly called ladybugs.
The bugs have been an important factor in the control of citrus pests,
since they feed on plant lice and scale insects.
RED Box DIVIDE, 22.7 rn. (4,666 alt.), marks the boundary between
the watersheds of the Arroyo Seco and the San Gabriel River. It was
so-named because of a large red box, still seen (R) above the road, in
which forest rangers store fire-fighting equipment.
Here an entirely new panorama opens northeast across the San
Gabriel watershed. Almost directly east is Old Baldy, MOUNT SAN
ANTONIO (10,080 alt.), the highest peak in Los Angeles County. Be
tween Red Box Divide and Mount San Antonio are a score of lower
peaks, ranging in height from 5,800 to 9,000 feet.
At 22.8 772. is the junction with Mount Wilson Road; R. here.
The approach to THE SADDLE, 25.1 m. } is along a narrow ledge of
rock. The range falls away (L) in a series of ridges. Protected by a
stout fence (R) is a sheer plunge of 1,000 feet into Upper Eaton
Canyon.
Left from The Saddle on Cliff hiking trail to the summit of MOUNT LOWE,
3 m. (5,650 alt.).
MOUNT WILSON (5,710 alt.) is topped by a thousand-acre,
much-eroded plateau, the grounds of the MOUNT WILSON HOTEL,
27.9 m. (grounds adm. $otf a car, refunded to overnight guests; hotel
rates reasonable), and of the Mount Wilson Observatory.
The mountain was named for Benjamin Davis Wilson, who in 1864
blazed a trail to its summit. Although generally credited with having
been the first white man to reach the summit, Wilson found two
abandoned cabins on the plateau near where the observatory buildings
now stand. They are supposed to have been built by marauders who
pillaged Missions San Gabriel (see Tour 3) and San Luis Obispo,
TOUR I A 299
making off with some 3,000 horses during the administration of Gov
ernor Alvarado.
WiUon s trail became popular with early hikers. It was used until
1889, when a road was built by the Pasadena and Mount Wilson Toll
Road Company. This in turn was replaced by the present route.
The WILSON MOM MI:\T, erected by the Alhambra and San Ga
briel Chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution, stands on
SIGNAL POINT, several hundred feet from the hotel.
The hotel, standing in about the center of the heavily wooded
plateau, is a low, simple building w r ith stuccoed walls and with gabled
roof steeply pitched to shed the snows ; across its front is a wide veranda
commanding a view of the vast valley. On foggy days the view is
obscured by fleecy, low-hanging clouds (the peak itself is always above
the clouds), but on clear days some 60 cities are seen stretching to the
distant sea, where offshore Santa Catalina Island (see Tour oA) shim
mers in the purple haze. The view is especially notable at night, when
the twinkling stars curve down in the bowl of the sky to mingle with
a million twinkling lights of the cities.
Scattered about the hotel are small guest cottages; before it is a
concrete swimming pool (adm. 40$ for transients, free for guests).
Within sight of the veranda is a small, lighthouse-like frame building
(R) called, for some obscure reason, the POET S CABIN. In it is
the master stone of the United States Geological Survey from which
was made the official survey of the San Gabriel Mountains in 1896.
A climb up a steep, winding stairway affords another view of the sur
rounding peaks and valleys. Footpaths winding among the trees lead
to many unusual rock formations, to numerous lookout points, and to
a small picnic ground (free).
MOUNT WILSON OBSERVATORY, whose white buildings, towers,
and domes are scattered among the giant trees (L), is operated by the
Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C. The first telescope was set
up on Mount Wilson by the Institution in 1904 under the supervision
of George E. Hale, who became the observatory s first director. Mount
Wilson was chosen as the site after long search because of its height,
freedom from atmospheric disturbance, and proximity to a metropolitan
area. The observatory was planned primarily for solar research but
"the necessity for seeking, among the stars and nebulae, for evidence as
to the past and future stages of solar and stellar life," soon became
evident, early resulting in a broadening of the field of the observatory.
Today eight telescopes are in use on Mount Wilson. Other facilities
include a technical library of more than 13,000 volumes and 10,000
pamphlets, and a large laboratory and optical shop (in Pasadena),
where new equipment is perfected and old repaired.
The HOOKER IOO-!NCH TELESCOPE (visitors weekdays 2:30-3
p.m.; Sun., holidays 2-3; free), in a great white metal dome about 300
feet NE. of the hotel, is of the reflector type and has a concave mirror
101 inches in diameter. It has brought into view for study some 2,-
000,000 faint extra-galactic nebulae, pushing the boundaries of the
3OO LOS ANGELES
known universe out to about 100 million light years. It admits 250,000
times more light than the unaided human eye, and 2,500 times as much
light as did the telescope with which Galileo Galilei began the modern
era of astronomy on January 7, 1610 at the University of Padua.
Images seen by the giant eye are recorded on photographic plates.
How the vast mirror weighing four and a half tons is controlled, is
explained by a member of the observatory staff during the daily visiting
hours. The telescope and dome were installed in 1918 at a cost of
about $600,000.
The 6o-lNCH TELESCOPE (visitors Fri. 7:30-8:30 p.m.; free},
housed in a white dome near the lOO-inch instrument is also an un
usually large reflector, though far outstripped by its giant neighbor.
The SNOW TELESCOPE (no visitors} is in a I5o-foot tower that
rises above the pines near the cluster of low, snub-nosed domes. This
instrument, the first placed on Mount Wilson, produces an image of the
sun 1 6 inches in diameter. It is elevated to prevent the heat reflected
from the ground from interfering with the accurate operation of the
delicate mirrors. To increase the steadiness of the lenses and mirrors
at so great a height, each steel leg and crosspiece of the tower skeleton
is housed within the hollow member of another skeleton tower with suf
ficient clearance to prevent contact. The inner tower thus carries the
instruments, the outer tower carries the dome that carries them.
The two TOWER TELESCOPES (no visitors} rise on steel frame
works, one 60, the other 150 feet high. Used like the Snow telescope
for solar observation, they represent improvements over that instru
ment, in that the path of the beam is vertical instead of horizontal,
with the mirrors placed high above the ground. In each the specto-
graph is mounted in a well beneath the tower. The 6o-foot tower is
equipped with a lens of 6o-foot focal length, which is used daily for
direct solar photographs and for spectro-heliograms showing the dis
tribution of hydrogen and calcium clouds over the sun. Through its
use a continuous photographic record of the sun s surface is maintained,
day by day, with a motion-picture camera of a special kind. The 150-
foot tower has a lens of 150 feet focal length, and a spectograph 75
feet in length. It is chiefly used for observation of the magnetic fields
in sun spots, and for measuring solar rotation.
The 12-lNCH TELESCOPE (visitors 8 p.m.; free), south of the
swimming pool is in a metal dome, some 20 feet high. Planets visible
through the telescope are recorded daily on the dome s bulletin board.
Visitors are permitted to peer through the lens. Daily at 8 p.m.
an astronomical lecture (free) is given in the hotel, or at the telescope
when the attendance is small.
The AUDITORIUM, a concrete structure with steep sloping roof of
iron sheeting, was opened in 1937 to provide a meeting room for scien
tific lectures. In the building, which seats 272, lectures (Fri. 7:JO
p.m.; adm. free but by card obtainable at office, 813 Santa Barbara
St., Pasadena) are given by members of the staff and demonstrated
w r ith slides and instruments.
TOUR IB 3OI
In the EXHIBIT HALL (open daily 1:30-2:30 p.m.; free}, opposite
the auditorium, are displayed astronomical instruments, charts, graphs,
and hundreds of transparencies, mounted in such manner as to illustrate
the various types of research undertaken by the observatory. The trans
parencies are produced from some 70,000 plates made during the course
of the observatory s existence.
Behind the maze of mathematical formulae that obscures his activ
ity from the layman, the researcher at Mount Wilson Observatory is
participating in a drama a thousand times more thrilling than the tales
told by the most imaginative fictionist. Through the silent hours of
the night he sits on the mountain peak, alone with the far-flung family
of the universe, that man may know a little more of his relation to that
universe, and of the beginnings, meaning, and destiny of the earth.
Sitting at the eyepiece on the lofty, cramped perch in the shadow of the
giant instrument, he knows that he alone in all the world is following
the westward movement of some distant star, for no other telescope
will reach so far into the outer spaces. On any night he may be as
fortunate as Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble was one winter night in 1936,
when his photographic plate caught a beam of light, just arrived on
earth but created seven million years ago in the distant island universe
NGC 4275, when a giant star, 50 times hotter and 10 million times
brighter than earth s sun, unaccountably exploded. The light Dr.
Hubble saw that night, and which anyone can now see on a photograph
in the museum, had been traveling 186,000 miles a second through
space since long before man first appeared on earth. Thirty thousand
years before it reached earth it passed the outer fringes of the Milky
Way; five years before it was inside Promina Centurl, earth s nearest
star. A month after it struck Mount Wilson s photographic plate it
had faded from the view of man, leaving only a photographic record of
a mighty celestial cataclysm and the satisfaction for Dr. Hubble of
knowing that he had been the first man since 1901 to witness such a
spectacle and the second since the telescope was invented.
Tour IB
TO CRYSTAL L IKE
Azusa Angeles National Forest Pine Flats Crystal Lake; 25.7 m.;
State 39 and Crystal Lake Rd.
Two-lane asphalt paved highway between Azusa and Pine Flats; one-lane,
one-way, graded dirt roads, impassable in wet weather between Pine Flats
and Crystal Lake; route sometimes closed for short periods after heavy snows
in winter.
Hotels, cottages, and camping facilities.
3O2 LOS ANGELES
Crystal Lake, the only natural lake within 50 miles of Los Angeles,
lies in a glacier-formed depression among mile-high, pine-rimmed slopes
deep in the San Gabriel Mountains. State 39 runs through San Ga
briel Canyon by easy gradients, then ascends the sharp rises of North
Fork Canyon through forests of pine and spruce.
State 39 branches north from US 66 (see Tour 1), m., on Azusa
Avenue, a street of tree-shaded homes and flats, in AZUSA (see
Tour 1).
The highway crosses the rock-strewn alluvial fan of the San Gabriel
River, 1.4 m., then follows the river s northwest bank. SAN GABRIEL
CANYON, entered at 1.8 m., cleaves the San Gabriel Mountains for 20
miles, between heights rising 5,000 to 9,000 feet. In former years the
San Gabriel River, here close to its source, held a constant flood threat
for lowland ranches and farms. Today its flow is regulated by three
dams.
A boundary of ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST (see Tour
1A) is crossed at 3 m.
MORRIS DAM, 4 m., is a concrete barrier 245 feet high across
a sharp bend in the San Gabriel River in Lower Pine Canyon. The
dam, 1, 1 60 feet long at roadway level, is of the concrete-gravity type,
capable of impounding 39,300 acre-feet of water. The spillway is in
three yo-foot weir sections. The weirs are equipped with automatically
operating steel sector gates that rise or drop with the falling or rising
water level.
Morris Dam was built by the city of Pasadena to augment its
municipal water supply pending completion of the Colorado River
Aqueduct System (see Tour 2). The Metropolitan Water District,
builders of the aqueduct, will eventually take over Morris Dam and use
the reservoir for storage of Colorado River waters. The dam and
reservoir were named for Samuel B. Morris, chief engineer of the
Pasadena Water Department.
North of a headland opposite the dam abutment the road winds
along the chaparral-clothed north shore of MORRIS RESERVOIR, which
extends northward between narrow canyon walls to the foot of SAN
GABRIEL DAM No. i, 7.2 m., an unusually large rock-fill dam. An en
tire mountainside was moved into the gorge, creating a barrier 381
feet high and 1,500 feet long. Facing northwest in a sharp curve in
the canyon, it has the appearance of a giant stairway rising from the
stream bed in terraces.
To ensure an earthquake-proof structure material for the dam was
deposited in six layers. Zone I, the topmost, consists of quarry ma
terial and Zone 2 of compacted loam. Zone 3, considered the back
bone or core of the dam, is of quarry material compacted by rolling
or tamping and Zones 4 and 5 of fine rock and large rock, respectively.
The large rock provides a free drainage mass and protection against
erosion. The bottom layer is built chiefly of hard rock. The outlet
works are installed in the 3O-foot-diameter tunnel that served as a
diversion channel during construction of the dam.
TOUR I R 303
The reservoir behind the dam is a catch-basin for a watershed of
two hundred square miles and when full forms a lake of 670 acres.
San Gabriel Dam No. I was built by the Los Angeles County
Flood Control District in 1935-37.
At 9.3 m. a great scar (R) disfiguring the mountainside is all that
remains of the first San Gabriel Dam project. In 1929 millions of
dollars were spent here on exploratory work preliminary to the building
of a concrete dam that was to have been the highest in the world.
Engineers who had been paid $1,000 a day for their work had pro
nounced the site safe, and months of excavation had been under way
when a disastrous landslide revealed geologic fault lines under the foun
dation. The project on this site was immediately abandoned.
At THE FORKS, 9.4 m., the San Gabriel Canyon branches into
the East Fork (R) and the West Fork (L).
On the East Fork, scene of southern California s first major gold
boom, is the SITE OF ELDORADOVILLE, a boom town founded in 1855.
As early as 1843, five years before the epochal discovery of gold on the
American River, Abel Stearns, Los Angeles merchant, bought gold
from Indian and Mexican placer miners working in San Gabriel Can
yon and shipped it to the Mint in Philadelphia. Widespread develop
ment began with the discovery of extremely rich deposits in the gravels
of the East Fork in 1855. During the whole period 1855-63 the aver
age daily earnings of each miner panning in the canyon were estimated
to be 25 per cent greater than the average of each worker during 1863,
the peak year in the northern gold camps. So rich was the dirt, accord
ing to one story, that a certain miner recovered an ounce of gold a day
by running the sawdust from the Union Saloon through his sluice box.
By 1 86 1 Eldoradoville had a population of 1,600, with saloons,
dance halls, and gambling shacks lining its short muddy streets. It was
known as "The Downieville of the South," by miners who boasted
that in toughness and general iniquity it compared with that Sierra
County town, reputedly the hardest-boiled of all the northern camps
of the late 1850*5.
Floods in 1857 an d 1861 severely damaged Eldoradoville and on
January 18, 1862, the swollen San Gabriel River swept it into oblivion.
Destruction of the town had little effect on mining production in
the canyon, but by the middle 1920 $ the take had dropped to insig
nificant proportions.
Right from The Forks on a rough foot trail to HOOVERVILLE, 1 m., now
only a scattering of tattered tents and crude log shacks along the banks of
the river between Susanna and Graveyard Canyons, but in the depression
years 1930-33 a collection of soo-odd shacks, tents, and dugouts occupied by
gold-seeking unemployed male transients. Daily the entire population swarmed
the near-by canyons to pan for gold with the crudest of equipment pie plates,
old skillets, sieves, screen-wire, discarded granite pots, and the like. The
yield per man averaged 50 to 60 cents worth of gold a day on bonanza days,
perhaps a dollar. Through the latter part of 1933 and in 1934 the town
waned; by 1935 it had lost two-thirds of its population. In 1938 floods swept
awav most of the lower-lying shacks, leaving only a handful of indigents still
picking the leavings.
304 LOS ANGELES
At 9.5 m. State 39 bears L. into West Fork Canyon.
CAMP RINCON (L), 10.9 m. } is a privately operated resort (rates
reasonable}. Near the gable-roofed green frame hotel are a dance hall,
a swimming pool, and croquet courts.
At 11.2 772. is the junction with a foot trail.
Right on this trail to the PAINTED ROCK, 0.4 m., one of several boulders
in the West Fork Canyon bearing pictographs of undetermined origin two
human figures and a mass of geometric designs. The markings are believed
to be sign posts of the aborigine along the old Indian trail that descended the
North Fork, West Fork, and main San Gabriel Canyons to the valley in the
vicinity of modern Duarte (see Tour 1).
At 11.6 m. the road bears R. into the North Fork Canyon and at
14 7. enters a growth of black-barked spruce, always the first conifer
encountered in the ascent of southern California mountains. These
evergreens grow singly and in groups of five or six along the steep
slopes, massing to denser clusters toward the 4,ooo-foot level. At 16.5
m. the grade mounts abruptly, the foothill character of the encircling
slopes gives way to mountains of gray and light-brown rock, the acclivi
ties frequently so steep that the spruce and pine find scant foothold. In
sun-sheltered gulches patches of snow are seen the year round.
Almost without warning, at 19 m. , the highway enters the true
forest, its air heavy with the scent of Jeffrey and sugar pines, incense
cedar, fir, spruce, and tamarack. The pines are distinguished by their
light-red columnar trunks, the firs by their thick, dark needles. In the
narrow canyons the trees are thickest.
At 19.9 777. is a junction with a private road.
Right on this graded dirt road to HEADLEE S MOUNTAIN CLUB (rates reason
able], 0.1 m. (4,000 alt.), a resort with a rustic wood-stone main lodge that
crowns a projection overlooking the main highway and the steep drop into
the North Fork Canyon. The resort has wading and swimming pools, a nine-
hole putting green, and croquet and horseshoe pitching courts.
CRYSTAL LAKE COUNTY RECREATION PARK (ski
runs, toboggan slides), 22.6 in., is a large i,35O-acre preserve main
tained as a public play- and campground by the Los Angeles County
Department of Recreation Camps and Playgrounds. A ranger on duty
at the ENTRANCE LODGE (5,012 alt.) registers cars and passengers.
Upward from the lodge the road, rising 705 feet in two miles,
circles into groves of pines and incense cedars. Many of the trees are
more than 150 feet high, with trunks four to five feet in diameter.
State 39 terminates at PINE FLATS, 24.6 m. (5,717 alt.), a
plateau studded with pines and rimmed by i,ooo-foot slopes. A one-
story log and stone store (R) faces eastward across the public PICNIC
AND CAMPGROUNDS (camping 25$ a day each car; season $2.50).
The facilities of an outdoor cook house (free) are supplemented by
individual grills scattered about the plateau. There are tennis and
volleyball courts, a children s playground, outdoor dance floor, and a
stone amphitheatre. In summer, before the huge fireplace in the
TOUR 2 305
amphitheatre, free entertainment is presented nightly. The park was
opened in 1923.
At Pine Flats is the junction with Crystal Lake Road. The route
is L. here on a narrow graded dirt road (one way traffic) that winds
through pine forests to a parking lot (free), 25.6 ;/*.
CRYSTAL LAKE, 25.7 m. f 300 feet from the road s end, is
reached by a foot trail down a narrow gorge, and extends along the
foot of high ridges on the west side of Pine Flats Basin. Fed only by
runoff from the surrounding slopes, the area of the lake varies from
a minimum of n acres in summer to a maximum of 15 acres in winter.
The average depth is 100 feet. Steep pine-clad slopes rim the lake on
the eastern and western sides; on the northern shore is a shelving
beach. Geologists agree that the Pine Flats area was once occupied
by a glacier three and one-half miles high and that the lake basin is of
glacial origin. In 1890 the Pacific Light and Power Company, be
lieving the lake to be fed by springs, contracted for the use of the
waters for generating electricity. A tunnel driven through the moun
tain to carry the water to a down-canyon power plant promptly drained
the lake, demonstrating the absence of springs.
Tour 2
TO PALM SPRINGS
Los Angeles Monterey Park Pomona Ontario Colton Redlands
Beaumont Banning Palm Springs Cathedral City Indio, 128.4
m.; N. Main St., Aliso St., Ramona Blvd., US 99, State in.
Concrete and asphalt-concrete paved roadbed; three and four lanes wide
between Los Angeles and Ontario.
Southern Pacific R.R. roughly parallels route. Greyhound motor coaches be
tween Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
All types of accommodation^.
This route runs through the citrus groves of the coastal valley, the
wind-swept heights of a mountain pass, and the hot, sandy soil of a
below-sea-level basin. In the early spring the orange groves of the San
Gabriel and San Bernardino Valleys bloom within sight of snow-capped
mountain peaks, and the orchards east of the San Gorgonio Pass are
pink and white with blooming almond, pecan, and cherry blossoms.
East of the pass, in the desert country, are a luxurious winter resort
patronized by film stars, and the date and grapefruit groves that thrive
in the hot climate of this lower-than-sea-level desert.
306 LOS ANGELES
North on Main St. from the LOS ANGELES CITY HALL,
m., ist and Main Sts., to Macy St.; R. on Macy to Mission Rd. ;
R. on Mission to Ramona Blvd.; and L. on Ramona Blvd. (US 99).
MONTEREY PARK (mountain of the king), 7.5 m. (395 alt.,
8,531 pop.), a residential community on Los Angeles northeastern out
skirts, has many large estates along the rolling hills (L) of its western
section, as well as rows of small, simple cottages and bungalows that
extend north and south from the highway in the eastern part of town.
It is in an area of rich sandy loam that has been transformed by irri
gation into a highly productive walnut, avocado, citrus fruit, berry,
truck garden, and poultry district. The city was incorporated in 1916.
EL MONTE (the mountain), 13.2 m. (290 alt., 4,746 pop.)
(see Tour 3), is at the junction with Valley Boulevard (see Tour 3).
East of El Monte US 99, traversing an area of small farms and
chicken ranches, crosses the SAN GABRIEL RIVER (see Tour 3),
14 m.
At 15.3 m. is the junction with Covina Boulevard.
Left on Covina Boulevard to BALDWIN PARK, 1.5 m. (375 alt., 3,910
pop.), an unincorporated community in a fruit- and truck-farming district.
Founded in the early i88o s, it is named for E. J. "Lucky" Baldwin (see Tour
1). The rock crushers, sand, and gravel plants in the San Gabriel Wash
district (northwest) provide employment for many of the residents.
Left from Baldwin Park, 1.3 m., on Ramona Boulevard to the HAGENBECK-
WALLACE CIRCUS WINTER QUARTERS (adm. on application], W. Ramona Blvd.
and Earl Ave. (L). Here, on 35 acres of level land, beside the huge parade
wagons, ornate with vivid paint and gold-leaf, and the brightly varnished
railroad cars, sidetracked along a spur, are cages of lions and tigers cats, in
circus parlance camel corrals, elephant sheds, kennels of trained dogs, and
pastures of ring horses and ponies. Elephants called bulls by the circus
men which during the summer season perform tricks in the big-top rings,
serve as beasts of burden here, hauling refuse wagons, shunting railroad
cars, and piling baled hay. In a large tent at the eastern edge of the grounds
aerialists practice their trapeze and high-wire acts, while lions, tigers, ele
phants, and horses are being trained in its ring. The circus usually remains
here from late November to early spring.
On US 99 east of Covina Boulevard truck farms and chicken
ranches diminish as unbroken lines of orange trees (see Tour 1) and
walnut trees (see Tour 3) appear on either side of the highway.
WEST COVINA, 18 m. (400 alt., 1,072 pop.), with an area of
more than eight square miles, has no concentrated business and residen
tial districts, but consists of large lemon, orange, grapefruit, and wal
nut groves, each with its rambling frame or stucco home built well back
from the pepper and eucalyptus-lined avenues. The town was incorpo
rated in 1923.
At 20.3 m. is the junction with Citrus Avenue.
Left on Citrus Avenue to COVINA, i m. (555 alt., 3,049 pop.), the largest
citrus shipping center in Los Angeles County. Its 12 packing houses, repre
senting 900 growers, annually ship from 2,500 to 3,000 carloads of fruit.
TOUR 2 307
Between West Covina and the SAX JOSE HILLS, 22 m., are con
tinuous citrus fruit groves. BUZZARD S PEAK (1,380 alt.), rises (R)
at 23.5 m.
At 24.8 m. is the junction with a private road.
Right on this road into the yso-acre grounds of the UNIVERSITY OF CALI
FORNIA INSTITUTE OF ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, 0.3 m. (open daily except Mon. 9-5;
free; exhibitions Sun. 2:00-3:30; adm. lot, children free}. The main building
is of white concrete surrounded with lawns and ornamental flower plantings.
Driveways leading to it have hedges of gardenias backed by apricot, prune,
and orange trees. The stalls face a rectangular patio. Here purebred Ara
bian stallions and mares are bred. In Sunday exhibitions, the horses are
shown at various gaits and in different types of saddle work, jumping, drilling,
and trick performances. The exhibitions are climaxed by a chariot race be
tween two teams of Shetland ponies.
Established in 1925 by William K. Kellogg, Battle Creek, Michigan, cereal
manufacturer, the ranch was presented by him in 1932 to the University of
California, which now operates it. The gift included the estate, stables and
laboratory facilities, 87 registered Arabian horses, and an endowment of
$600,000.
POMONA, 28.3 m. (859 alt., 23,539 pop.), at the eastern edge
of Los Angeles County, lies along the eastern base of the San Jose
Hills, which separate Pomona Valley from the rest of San Gabriel
Valley.
The city is a shipping point for 30,000 acres of citrus groves and
additional acres producing walnuts, hay, grain, and vegetables. Manu
factures include brick and tile, paper fruit wrappers, and canned and
packed fruits and vegetables.
The site of Pomona was part of Rancho San Jose de Arriba (San
Jose the upper), which fell to Ricardo Vejar during a division of the
original Rancho San Jose in 1846 (see Tour 3). In 1866 the land
came into possession of Louis Phillips, whose home, still standing
on Valley Boulevard (see Tour 5), was the first brick house in this
region. Phillips granted a right-of-way to the Southern Pacific Rail
road in 1873. A year later the Los Angeles Immigration and Land
Co-operative Association was organized to promote a fruit colony and
found a town. In a contest to decide the name of the city, Solomon
Gates, nurseryman, submitted the winning suggestion "Pomona, God
dess of Fruit," and won a free lot.
In the STAN TON" CACTUS GARDENS (free}, 877 W. Grand Ave.,
are more than a thousand varieties of cacti and succulents gathered by
the owner, S. F. Stanton, in the southwestern parts of the United
States and northern Mexico. A specimen of saguaro (tree cactus) is
1 1 feet high.
The 56-year-old CAMPHOR TREE on the front lawn of the Pomona
Ebell Club, Holt Ave. and Caswell St., is 50 feet high, has a trunk
fight feet in circumference, and branches that divide near the ground
and spread 50 feet in all directions. It is considered the oldest camphor
tree in California.
The first Christian religious service in Pomona Valley was held
under the CHRISTIAN" OAK, South Kenoak Dr. near the corner of
308 LOS ANGELES
Wisconsin St. March 9, 1837. Padre Zalvidea, father-superior of San
Gabriel Mission (see Tour 3), pronounced a benediction here upon the
families and retainers of Rancho San Jose (see Tour 3).
The ALVARADO. ADOBE (private), 1475 N. Park Ave., in an orange
grove about 100 feet back from Park Ave., is a one-story, shingle-roofed
structure, built in 1840. Its adobe walls are almost completely hidden
by later additions.
The PALOMARES ADOBE (private), 1569 Park Avenue, was built in
1837 by Ygnacio Palomares as the first hacienda of his Rancho San
Jose (see Tour 3). This one-story, thick-walled house, surrounded by
oleanders, peach, and orange trees, served as Palomares home until the
completion of the Tavern Adobe (see below).
The ruin of the PALOMARES TAVERN ADOBE (L), hidden in an
orange grove near the corner of Cucamonga Rd. and Orange Grove
Ave., was built by Ygnacio Palomares in 1850. Its three western
rooms are roofless, the mud walls reduced to half their original height.
The eastern part is more substantial. Here, two small chambers open
into a 15-foot-square sola (parlor), with a large fireplace, now in
ruins.
GANESHA PARK (picnic facilities, playground, swimming pool,
Greek theatre}, Huntington Blvd., between Loma Vista St. and Wal
nut Ave., Pomona s 6o-acre municipal park, extends over rolling hills
in the northwestern residential section. Through it wind several miles
of drives, one mounting to Inspiration Point, which affords views of
San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys and the San Gabriel Mountains. The
land was once owned by P. C. Tonner, lawyer and student of Hindu
literature, who had named his estate after Ganesha, Hindu god of rain
and rivers.
In the 35O-acre Los ANGELES COUNTY FAIR GROUNDS, Hunting-
ton Blvd. and Walnut Ave., the annual Los Angeles County Fair is
held (usually last 2 wks. in Sept.; adm. 2^(j"-^0^; parking free}. Each
season more than a half-million visitors are attracted by the 35,000
exhibits, the attending movie stars, and the daily harness and running
races held under pari-mutuel regulations on the half-mile track. The
stakes exceed $25,000 for the season and there are accommodations for
25,000 spectators in the grandstand and infield. The plant, valued at
$2,500,000, contains 52 exhibit buildings, with a combined floor space
of more than 30 acres.
The first Los Angeles County Fair was held in Exposition Park
(see Tour D), Los Angeles, in 1913. The fair was moved to Pomona
in 1922. The main exhibits are of machinery, poultry, art, handwork,
domestic arts, and livestock.
In Pomona is the junction with US 60 (see Tour 7) which
branches south from US 99 and runs parallel to it through Ontario.
ONTARIO, 33.6 m. (979 alt., 14,197 pop.), the shipping center
for approximately 200 dairies, also has numerous fruit canning and
packing houses and by-products plants which manufacture orange juice,
oil, and vinegar. A plant of the General Electric Company employs
TOUR 2 309
450 workers here in the manufacture of electric irons, refrigerators,
and other electrical appliances.
Tree-bordered EUCLID AVENUE (see Tour 1), is distinctive among
southern California boulevards.
Ontario was founded in 1891 by George B. and W. B. Chaffey,
who named it after their native Canadian province.
East of Ontario the vast tracts of low-cut grape vines growing from
the gray sandy loam are part of the Italian Vineyards holdings which
extend for 4.5 miles along US 99.
At 37.4 m. is the junction with Turner Avenue.
Right on Turner Avenue to GUASTI, 0.7 m. (400 alt., 450 est. pop.) a town
built by the Italian Vineyard Company in the center of their 5,ooo-acre Guasti
vineyard, which is advertised as the largest in the world. The village has its
own post office, school, church, and stores. Along Turner and Guasti Avenues
the company has built frame bungalows for its married employees and two-
story frame dormitories for the single men and women. On western Guasti
Avenue is the principal wine-finishing PLANT OF FRUIT INDUSTRIES LIMITED.
a state-wide distributing co-operative. Adjoining, between Turner and Archi
bald Aves. is (R) the ITALIAN VINEYARD COMPANY WINERY (open by arrange
ment], a two-story brick and concrete structure, flanked by a series of vats,
process sheds, laboratories, receiving and distributing houses all part of an
assemblage in which annually some two million gallons of wine are produced.
In these laboratories the standard is set for all brands of wine made by the
nine members of the co-operative.
About a third of the wine distributed by Fruit Industries Limited is pro
duced by the Italian Vineyard Company; the remaining four or five million
gallons from its other affiliates are received here as raw wine.
In the Guasti area, California s third largest grape-producing district, and
in northern California s inland valleys, the growing of sweet-wine grapes
predominates; the principal dry-wine grape-growing region is around San
Francisco Bay, where the climate is cooler. Although the state s grape-grow
ing (the fifth most important division of its agriculture), includes table and
raisin grapes, California made 91 million of the 98 million gallons of wine
produced in the United States in 1937.
The wine is made only in the fall. In late summer as the grapes are
beginning to mature the laboratory makes daily tests of their sugar nd acid
content so that each variety can be harvested at the proper stage of ripeness
for making its particular type of wine.
The grapes, cut from waist-high untrellised rows of vines, are hauled to
the winery in trucks, unloaded on two long concrete receiving platforms and
carried on conveyors to the two crushing machines. At Guasti certain vari
eties of grapes are gathered and crushed together, thus eliminating the later
blending of finished wines.
Crushed grapes are pumped to tanks in the fermenting room, where by a
natural process the grape sugar is transformed into alcohol and carbon dioxide
(gas) by the activity of the enzymes and the yeasts present in the crushed
mass. Of the various organisms molds, bacteria, and yeasts found on
grapes, all are undesirable for wine fermentation except the true wine yeast;
and since the cells of this yeast that are found on California grapes are usually
of inferior strains, modern wine makers kill all organisms on the grapes by
sterilization, and start fermentation by adding a pure wine-yeast cultivated
in laboratories. The yeast cultures used in the Guasti vats are imported from
France.
The excessive heat generated during fermentation is controlled by pumping
the fermenting wine into concrete sumps cooled with copper coils.
After active fermentation in the open vat, which takes from a few days
to more than a week, depending upon the type of wine being made, the juice
3IO LOS ANGELES
is drawn off the crushed grapes and run into storage vats to finish fermenting.
These vats are equipped with escape bungs stoppers regulated to retain a
certain pressure of carbon dioxide upon the wine, and to let out excess gas
without letting in bacteria-laden air. The presence of the carbon dioxide
prevents the growth of vinegar bacteria and other organisms that attack wine
in the presence of free oxygen. As soon as the fermentation is complete, the
wine is drawn off its first, or crude sediment and run into casks or barrels.
This action aerates the wine sufficiently to prevent the development of bac
teria; it also releases most of the carbon dioxide with which the wine has been
charged while fermenting in the storage vats, and which retards aging.
While the wine is aging in oak or redwood casks in the constant low
temperature of a cellar it undergoes two principal changes development of
mellowness and flavor by gradual oxidation in the wood, and precipitation of
undissolved matter, and "albumins" (principally cream of tartar). The casks,
tightly closed to exclude air, are racked from sediment and aerated two or
three times a year.
Sweet wines fortified with brandy, such as Angelica, Muscatel, Tokay,
Port, Madeira, Malaga, and Marsala, are not considered fit for drinking
under two years, and improve indefinitely with the years. They are used as
tonics, as dessert wines, and in cooking. Some wines, such as the Sauternes,
are naturally sweet (unfortified) ; their fermentation is arrested with the
addition of sulfite when the proper degree of sugar and alcohol is reached.
Dry wines those in which complete fermentation eliminates all sugar per
ceptible to the taste are lighter in body, and lower in alcohol content than
the sweet wines. They are ready for use after one or two years and are best
under 10 years. Sherry is a white wine fermented as any sweet variety and
then put through a special process called cooking, which caramelizes the grape
sugar and gives a nut-like flavor. At Guasti it is made in a separate building
containing tall slender cooking vats in which the wine is kept at a temperature
of 140 for about three months. The vats are not directly heated, but the
temperature in the building is maintained by log-burning furnaces. Sherry
is fortified with brandy and aged before bottling.
The brandy, made in the winery s own distillery, is made in four types
Fortifying Brandy, Grappa, Muscat, and California Grape (Cognac) Brandy.
Grappa is distilled from a wash made by adding water to the crushed grape
skins and pulps left after fermented wine has been drawn from them; Muscat
has a pronounced flavor and bouquet from the Muscat grapes used in making
the distilling stock; California Grape (cognac) is the term used for all com
mercial brandy which does not come under one of the three other classifica
tions.
The Guasti plant also makes champagne, which is naturally fermented a
second time in the bottle, after the primary fermentation in the vat given all
dry white wines. A measured quantity of sugar in rock candy form, and a
culture of selected champagne yeast is put into the bottle with the champagne
stock; the bottle is then tightly stoppered and the cork strapped with steel to
prevent its being blown out by the pressure of fermentation within. The rock
sugar is entirely used in the fermentation and the champagne is perfectly dry
when it goes into the aging room. It is cleared by settling with the bottle
standing neck down at a 45 angle. When the sediment has collected on
the cork, it is the usual procedure to freeze about an inch of the champagne
next to the cork, after which the steel straps are removed, and the pressure
within the bottle blows out the cork and the frozen sediment. This is called
disgorging. At Guasti disgorging is accomplished by a secret process without
freezing. After disgorging, the bottles pass at once into a machine which
keeps the champagne under pressure and prevents loss of effervescence; here
sweetening syrup and brandy in measured amounts are added.
At Guasti, the wines made in the Italian Vineyard Company winery become
the property of the co-operative when they are ready for finishing, which
includes refrigeration, pasteurization, clarification, and three filiations.
Wine making in California began with the Franciscan padres. The first
TOUR 2 311
vineyard was planted at the Mission San Diego in 1771, and as the missions
advanced to San Francisco, their European wine grape, later called the Mission
grape, went with them. Though the vine is vigorous its fruit is only fair for
making wine, and the padres, who crushed their grapes by having Indians
trample them with their bare feet, achieved a very mediocre drink. Crude
methods of wine making continued until Count Augustin Haraszthy, a Hun
garian immigrant, began experimenting with the culture of fine European
wine-grape varieties in the San Francisco Bay area in the i86o s. A wine-
making boom resulted. But the young industry was quickly ruined by the
inexperienced and unscrupulous who used inferior grapes and fraudulent
methods that gave all California wines a bad reputation. In 1880 the makers
of good wines gained passage of a pure-wine law by the state legislature, and
by the turn of the century California wines were favorably known in many
parts of the world.
In 1920 when the eighteenth amendment outlawed alcoholic beverages, many
excellent wine-grape vines were torn up and prunes, apricots, and oranges
planted in their places. With the repeal of prohibition in 1933, the California
wine industry revived and by 1938 had outstripped preprohibition records.
The highway skirts the northern base (R) of SLOVER MOUNTAIN
(1,509 alt.), at 50.4 m., which furnishes raw material for 4,000,000
barrels of cement a year. The mountain is owned and worked by the
California-Portland Cement Company.
COLTON, 51.9 m. (847 alt., 9,686 pop.), is a manufacturing
town on the main lines of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Rail
roads and on a branch line of the Santa Fe Railway. Flour mills,
railroad repair shops, ice manufacturing plants, cooling establishments
for refrigerating fruit express cars, and the near-by cement and quarry
ing operations in the Slover Mountain district provide the chief sources
of employment.
At 58.2 7/1. is a junction with Nevada Avenue.
Right on Nevada Avenue to a junction with Barton Avenue, 1 m.; L. on
Barton Avenue to the SAN BERNARDINO ASISTENCIA (branch mission), 1.1 m.
(open 8-6). The present tile-roofed, low white buildings (L) ranged about a
walled patio, are a restoration built on the old cobblestone foundations of the
asistencia that was erected here in 1821 as the San Bernardino Valley head
quarters of Mission San Gabriel (see Tour 3).
REDLANDS, 60.2 m. (1,350 alt., 14,324 pop.), is a college town,
and fruit-packing center surrounded by more than 15 thousand acres
of citrus groves. In the 1937-38 season this area produced approxi
mately 4,200 cars of navel oranges and 1,300 cars of Valencia oranges,
worth six million dollars. Near the business area the palm-lined streets
are bordered with small houses and flower gardens. Wealthy east
erners, attracted by the winter climate and the setting of snow-capped
mountains rising above green orange groves, have built palatial winter
homes surrounded by acres of landscaped grounds on the hills in the
southern part of town.
Before 1881 when E. G. Judson and F. E. Brown sponsored the
digging of a canal, six miles long, from the Santa Ana River to a
reservoir in the mouth of Yucaipa Valley, to the east, the region was a
semibarren mesa called Redlands for the color of its soil. A year after
the canal s completion, 1,500 acres of orange groves were planted here
312 LOS ANGELES
and 120,000 grapevines were set out by Dr. J. D. B. Stillman on a
loo-acre area at Lugonia, then several miles to the north. In four
years these produced so heavily that a winery was built. Redlands,
Lugonia, and other small settlements near by were incorporated as one
community in 1881 and given the name of Redlands.
The 17 buildings of the UNIVERSITY OF REDLANDS, E. Colton Ave.
and University St., are distributed over 100 acres of rolling foothills
that once were a part of Dr. Stillman s vineyard. The ADMINISTRA
TION BUILDING occupies the site of Dr. Stillman s first home (see be
low}, and BEKINS HALL, the site of the Stillman barn. Many of the
buildings have porticos and other Greek Revival motifs. The founda
tion stones of the PRESIDENT S RESIDENCE, adjoining the administra
tion building, are from the old winery. The classic, two-story Library
contains over 30,000 books; the Department of Music has a $40,000
four-manual Casavant organ. Through the university grounds runs
the old Judson-Brown Canal, which carries water to Mentone Reser
voir, the school s privately-owned, four-million-gallon storage basin. In
a Greek Theatre on the bank of the canal the annual Zanja Fiesta
(Ditch Celebration) is held. The university has an endowment of
more than $5,000,000 and a student enrollment of 700.
SMILEY PARK, between 4th and San Gorgonio Sts., Olive Ave., and
Glenwood Dr., contains a bronze BUST OF WILLIAM McKiNLEY,
commemorating his visit to Redlands in 1901. Both the park and the
A. K. SMILEY PUBLIC LIBRARY (open Q-Q; Sun. and holidays 2-4),
were gifts to the city in 1898 by A. K. Smiley, Redland s pioneer sub-
divider and philanthropist. The building, cruciform in plan, of red
brick with stone trim, contains more than 110,000 books and manu
scripts.
In the REDLANDS BOWL, a palm-rimmed, open-air theatre in the
center of Smiley Park, community concerts are held (Tues. and Fri.
nights) during the summer.
The WATCHORN LINCOLN SHRINE (open weekdays except Fri.,
10-12 and 1-5:30), at the Eureka St. and Olive Ave. corner of Smiley
Park, was established in 1932 by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Watchorn in
memory of a son killed in the World War. A Carrara marble BUST
OF LINCOLN, by George Grey Barnard, faces the entrance. The build
ing, a hexagonal tower-like structure of white granite rising to a two-
story height, contains approximately 200 original documents, letters,
and manuscripts pertaining to Lincoln and his contemporaries, as well
as relics including carnelian cameo cuff links, used by Lincoln during
his stay in the White House; a packet Bible carried by General T. J.
(Stonewall) Jackson throughout the Civil War, and General U. S.
Grant s field Bible.
Southeast of Redlands US 99 steadily mounts rolling green hills
and intensively farmed valleys. The citrus groves of Redlands, eastern
outpost of southern California s navel orange belt, soon give way to
large apple orchards, interspersed with occasional pecan, almond, and
cherry groves, forerunners of the thousands of similar plantings to the
TOUR 2 313
east. From 71.2 m., Cherry Valley (L) and the ascending foothills
beyond appear as a solid mass of cherry orchards, aglow with blooms
in early spring.
On the L. above the dark mass of the SAN BERNARDINO
MOUNTAINS, rises snow-capped SAN GORGONIO (11,485 alt.), and
20 miles south of it is the wind-beaten summit (R) of SAN JACINTO
(10,800 alt.) towering above the San Jacinto Range. These two peaks
are the highest in southern California.
SAN GORGONIO PASS, 72.7 m., is a wide, gradually narrow
ing valley, which reveals itself as a pass on the eastern grade. The
strong wind that always blows through the pass seldom changes its
west-to-east direction, but when the infrequent east wind does blow,
Los Angeles, 80 miles tp the west, feels the sting of the so-called
"Santa Anas" (see Tour 3). Though this is one of the best routes
to and from the desert, it was seldom used by white men until the
middle of the igth century, because of the hostility of the Cahuilla
tribes. In 1862 a stage line from Ehrenberg, on the Colorado River,
to Los Angeles began operations through the pass. Extensive settle
ment, however, awaited the building of the Southern Pacific in 1875.
The railroad company won the good will of the Indians by promising
them free train rides, and in 1876 the first train through was greeted
with enthusiasm.
BEAUMONT, 74.8 in. (2,559 alt., 2,208 pop.), in a mountainous
setting near the summit of San Gorgonio Pass, is surrounded by small
cultivated valleys having decided pastoral charm. Beaumont is the
center of some 4,000 acres of cherry orchards, the principal varieties
being Black Tartarians, Bings, Royal Anns, and Lamberts.
Since 1931 the blossoming of the trees has been celebrated with the
Beaumont Japanese Cherry Festival (April} suggested by the cherry
blossom fetes in Japan. Long lines of motor cars drive along the
blooming orchards of cherries, almonds, apples, peaches, and plums.
East of the SUMMIT OF SAN GORGONIO PASS (2,600 alt.), 75 ///.,
the highway gradually descends a narrow depression between the
mountains.
At 77.2 m. is the junction with a paved road.
Left on this road to HIGHLAND SPRINGS, 2 m. (2,700 alt.), a private resort
and recreation and health center on 400 acres in the foothills of the San
Bernardino Mountains. This, the first white settlement in San Gorgonio Pass,
was founded in the 1870 $ on the old stage route from Ehrenberg (later from
Yuma) to Los Angeles that crossed the present resort grounds; stage-coaches
stopped here for meals and to change horses at the stage station, a one-story
adobe structure, placed in service in 1871, and abandoned a few years later
when the railroad was put through. Now used as a tool shed this weathered
and crumbling building, with its leaking corrugated iron roof, and with only
about one-third of the original structure standing, is the only remaining station
along this old route.
BANNING, 80.9 ///. (2,314 alt., 3,874 pop.), the center of south
ern California s almond-growing area, is the usual approach to the
San Jacinto mountain resorts to the south, and is also the site of several
3 1 4 LOS ANGELES
sanatoriums. Surrounding the town, in addition to more than a thou
sand acres of almonds, are several hundred acres each of peaches, pears,
apples, and plums; groves of walnuts and olives; and a few truck
farms. In the town are a fruit cannery, several fruit-packing, shipping,
and drying establishments, and a prune and apricot warehouse. The
foothills north of Banning offer the best view of the almond orchards,
which are covered in February with creamy white blossoms.
The town was laid out in 1883, an d named for General Phineas
Banning (see The Harbor). In the early i86o s, this site was a stop
on the government s camel caravan route from the harbor at Wilming
ton to Tucson, Arizona. This, the last of the government s attempts
to use camels for desert transportation, was discontinued after a year.
The idea originated with Lieutenant Edward F. Beale (1822-93) who
served with Stockton in California and traveled overland from the
Pacific coast to Washington. Beale persuaded Jefferson Davis, then
Secretary of War, to try the experiment. The 77 camels, purchased
in Egypt and Arabia in 1856 and 1857, were accompanied by four
Arab drivers. They were taken to Camp Verde in Texas, and there
separated into two divisions. One operated between bases and outposts
in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The other was put in charge of
Lieutenant Beale who employed them on his survey of a wagon route
from Fort Defiance in northeastern Arizona to Fort Tejon (near
Bakersfield) in Kern County, California. The charting was completed
in 48 days. A few of the camels were taken on a little expedition
south over Cajon Pass from Fort Tejon to Los Angeles, where they
were met by the mayor and many curious citizens. After his retirement
from the service and before his appointment in 1876 as minister to
Austria-Hungary, Beale lived on his ranch near Bakersfield and fre
quently drove a team of camels to town.
The caravan continued to be employed in road construction and
route-laying expeditions until the early i86o s, when it was quartered in
Wilmington and used in transport between Los Angeles and the harbor,
and between the harbor and points in Arizona. During the Civil War
those interested in the camels were transferred to other parts, the ani
mals were neglected, and the protests of mule breeders and drivers
heeded. The camels were placed on auction and many were purchased
by Samul McLeneghan of Sacramento, who took them through Los
Angeles and raised $100 by racing them in Agricultural Park, now
Exposition Park (see Tour D), before he sent them to Nevada mine
owners. Within three years the herd was dispersed, some of the beasts
escaping into the desert and others being turned loose as unmanageable
nuisances. They wandered about the Mojave and Colorado desert
regions, harried by plains wolves and shot at by startled prospectors,
who told strange tales of the abandoned beasts. An Arizona cave was
said to contain several mummified camels bodies, well preserved in the
rare desert air. Even as late as the 1920*8 a camel lived on the out
skirts of Banning, pillaging feed supplies, nipping domestic plantings,
frightening farm stock, demolishing camp tents, and doing whatever
TOUR 2 315
other damage occurred to his perverse camel mind. Finally a citizens
posse hunted him down and shot him.
East of Banning the green of the mountain slopes gradually fades
to the dun-gray of sage and the bronze-green of mesquite and Spanish
daggers (see Tour 7) grow in the rocky declivities.
In CABAZON, 85.7 ;//. (1,791 alt., 100 pop.), a Southern Pacific
Railroad town, sandblasted and weatherworn by the almost continuous
winds through the San Gorgonio Pass, is a roundhouse for auxiliary
engines that help push freight and passenger trains over the grade.
Most of the population is employed by the railroad. The name is a
corruption of the Spanish word cabezon (big head), believed to have
been used by early Spaniards in describing a big-headed Indian chief
of the district.
The highway crosses the COLORADO RIVER AQUEDUCT,
87.7 m., of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
(see The Historical Background}.
As the route continues its long descent to the desert floor, the
velocity of the west wind becomes more pronounced in the restricted
channel between the mountains. Cactus increases in number and vari
ety; in the semiarid stretches immediately beside the road, is the deer-
head, in the rocky slopes are the low, flat-leaved beavertail, and the
Engelmann cactus, with its clusters of cylindrical-shaped leaves.
Sandy wastes stretching to the Indio Hills on the eastern horizon
constitute a part of Coachella Valley. Straight ahead, beyond the
eastern mouth of the pass, a queer, funnel-shaped apparatus is sil
houetted against a background of rock-littered slopes. It is all that
remains of the OLIVER POWER GENERATOR, a tube-shaped device re
sembling the barrel of a giant blunderbuss. This contrivance, removed
far enough from the channel of greatest wind velocity to escape most
of the drifting sand, was designed to transform the wind into electrical
power by means of propellers within the tube. Although it worked,
financial difficulties overwhelmed the inventor, and the machine was
abandoned.
At 93.6 m. is the junction with State in ; R. on this route.
COACHELLA (Ind., small shells) VALLEY, 93.7 m., is a great
arid trough 50 miles long and 15 miles wide, bounded by the Little
San Bernardino and the Cottonwood Mountains on the northeast and
the San Jacinto and the Santa Rosa Mountains on the southwest. Part
of it that reaches to the shore of Salton Sea is below sea level. Some
millions of years ago Coachella Valley was the head of the Gulf of
California, with a beach line still clearly seen, and on which agates,
moonstones, and fossilized remains of aquatic life are found. The
Colorado River eventually dammed th 
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American Libraries
TV News
Understanding 9/11